by P. S. Power
The bell rang then and people got up as if puppets on strings, almost in unison. About half of them leaving fast, as if trying to flee the building in fear of being kept, and the other half lingering for a minute to talk to their friends and hug before leaving for nearly two whole weeks. That was one of the nice things about drama at Shilo high, if you wanted a hug, someone would eventually give you one. Just look at someone and hold your arms out. Of course he only wanted one person there to hug him. Amy. She never had. They talked though and given how popular she was, that was pretty cool.
Surprisingly she walked up, dark amber eyes sparkling, a small envelope with a tiny candy cane taped to the outside in her hand. Everyone else was just getting candy canes from the little clear plastic bag she carried in the other hand. That she was the only one that had thought to do anything like that was another sign of just how perfect she was.
“Here. Um, Merry Christmas!” She said, her right hand touching his left arm gently.
Josh felt awkward and strange suddenly, but, thankfully, he actually could act. It was his looks that held him back there, as often as not. Mrs. Kincaid liked to take “risks” with her casting choices, at least she always said so, but for some reason all her top picks were always good looking... It was probably training for real life, so Josh didn't let it bug him too much. A person looked how they looked.
He just pretended he was on a stage, instead of in front of Amy. Both were nerve wracking, but if he messed up on stage people would just laugh at him or maybe even feel bad. If he messed up with Amy...
Well, that would actually stick with him.
“Hey you! What's this now? Presents? I didn't get you anything...” It came out decently smooth and happy sounding. Oh, sure, it was fake, but Amy just smiled at him and brushed her amber colored locks to the side, over her right ear.
“Just a card. Wait until you get home to read it?” She touched his arm again, but smiled.
Then moved off to the doorway, where her boyfriend, Anthony, stood waiting for her. Not one of the drama department guys at all. Or a jock even.
The only thing that Josh knew about the guy, other than his first name, was that he was good looking. Movie star good looking. Unfairly handsome really. When Amy started dating him about two months before Josh had decided to just back off and let go of any hope he might have secretly held with her. He couldn't compete with someone like that. If Anthony whatshisname was a nine on a scale of ten and Amy a solid eight, Josh probably barely made it to six on a good day, and that was being generous. Five was probably closer most of the time.
Six foot tall, one-eighty, in shape but not exactly cut or lean, dirty blond hair that was impossible to manage and a fashion sense that didn't really count as one at all. Mainly he just dressed to catch attention, with bright shirts and military camo pants or sometimes brightly colored shorts, even in winter. That or a sweater and jeans like what he wore at the moment. He probably looked like a paint box exploded most of the time. That was about the affect Josh was going for at least. It made him seem happy, he hoped. Better goofy than dark and depressed all the time.
It didn't really work as far as getting attention went. Not very well at least. It pretty much just meant he was weird.
Josh sighed and tried not to feel like his heart was ripping out of his chest as the amber haired girl walked away, her arms going around the dark haired boy in the doorway. They didn't kiss, but the guy made a point of grabbing her butt, which got a giggle from her and Anthony's hand swatted at.
“Stop... People are watching...” She said voice low and playful, looking back at Josh. She looked a bit troubled for some reason. Just embarrassed by the public display of affection no doubt.
He felt his face fall, and looked away. Stupid of him to have ever let himself fall in love in the first place. It wasn't just a crush either. Josh had experienced those. This was way different. It really did suck, too. He felt like crying at the scene, but decided not to be a little girl about the fact that he was alone and just go workout in the school's gym before heading home. Lifting weights normally made him feel better. The endorphins he guessed. That or just the fact that if a muscle got tired enough it was hard for it to be tense. Whichever, it worked. Of course he needed to hit his locker first or his books would be locked away by the time the lifting was done.
The hallway was nearly clear by the time he got there, three wings away from the drama room, blue and black book bag in hand. Normally everything just got shoved in there and carried, but it was just before the break, so anything he forgot would just stay the whole time and that could be inconvenient. As he approached the metal wall of gray he noticed that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Potentially annoying too.
Right in the middle of his locker, stuck in place with silver duct tape, was a large, very thick, manila envelope. In the middle of the somewhat dingy thing was a single yellow sticky note.
For Josh Harding.
Well, it had found the right place, whatever it was. How anyone even knew he had this locker Josh didn't know really. He only checked it about once or twice a week, so it wasn't like he was standing by it between classes constantly like some people did.
Pulling it down took some work, but the sticky on the back of the tape released well enough and didn't make a huge mess. Just a bit of rubbing got most of the adhesive off. It took a second to see that the tape had a lot of layers one on top of the other, more than he could make out clearly, so that only a little edge of adhesive ran in a square on the outside. The inner pieces were all older. Covered with little bits of fuzz or folded. He did the same thing, turning the tape on itself and shoved it in his bag. Hopefully it wasn't just a prank or something... but it probably was. A stink bomb or chain letter that would require him to write a hundred letters to other people, or else bad things would happen to him. Even more likely, something incredibly mundane and boring.
An invitation to be on the chess team or something.
The weight facilities were left open for the students to use after school for two hours each day. Normally that meant him and one or two people making up a missed class so their grade wouldn't suffer too much. He went every day and rarely bothered to miss school, so it didn't really count toward his score. Today it meant that the football coach, Mr. Nevers, was there alone, holding a clipboard when Josh walked in, fifteen minutes later, having changed into a pair of old cut off sweat pants and a ratty red t-shirt.
The older man smiled and pointed at him when he walked in.
“Ah! Just the man. I was wondering if anyone would show today. I have to stay regardless... So, tell me Josh, are you finally going to try out for a sport this year? As a junior you're in a good place for it. You've got the natural aptitude... Strength, decent speed and a good work ethic. Any team here would take you.” The man smiled as if he didn't say something similar almost every other day.
It wasn't that Josh had anything against sports, just that going out for them took things like doctor's visits and parental permission. He might be able to swing a note from his mom, if he could catch her after work some night, and getting the money for it was no big deal, but a doctor's visit would take more parental involvement than Mercy Harding was willing to part with. At least it always seemed that way. It might be possible to arrange it without her though. Take a bus and get her secretary to set things up? He just shrugged.
“Maybe? I'll see about track.”
“Good! Ms. Graf will love to have you I'm sure. Don Williams told me that you kept tying up with him in the forty meter in class the other day. That's tough to do, he's already a world class sprinter. Fastest high school student in the country right now.”
Josh shrugged. He'd actually beaten him once, when the guy got a bad start. It was a trick though. An illusion. The guy was wicked fast and could finish a hundred meter run a full second and a half faster than he could. At the end of forty meters he was running flat out and Don was still accelerating. Pretty much a
n issue of mass, Josh guessed. He outweighed the other guy by over forty pounds. It made a difference. Why it didn't work the other way around Josh had no clue, but that was what happened. He could beat Don in a four-forty, but not a two hundred. That came down to endurance though.
The workout was all machine based, but since there was no one else there Josh got to actually try as hard as he could and not feel self-conscious for once, so loaded the weights as heavy as they'd go for most of the equipment. It would have been good if they went heavier, but most people here didn't really need it and the old equipment was just meant to get people through PE classes, not produce Olympic hopefuls.
Josh had a towel with him to wipe the vinyl seats and benches down when he was done, since he started sweating about five minutes in and didn't stop the whole time. It was a bit gross, but he tried to keep things tidy, even if he was alone.
It was just one of his things, being clean. Not an obsession, but it was important.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, feeling a bit better, he waved to the gym coach on the way out and headed back to the showers to get cleaned up before walking home. Josh took his time, since there was no reason not to, vacation starting or not. No one would be waiting for him after all. They couldn't even have pets. Well, goldfish, but that didn't really count. Petting something under water wouldn't make him feel loved, would it? Plus it would probably annoy the fish.
The shower water was hot at least and there was no worrying about who was looking where, since no one else was in the room at all. Josh grabbed one of the brown school towels and used it, the shelf of clean ones always full, even though he hadn't paid for one himself. Most of the kids didn't shower after PE, but most of their parents paid for them anyway, so there were always extra and no one said anything if he just went and got it as if he was entitled. Supposedly there was a list. No one ever checked it. He sweat too much not to get clean, embarrassing naked parade through the room or not and bringing a towel from home worked, but meant carrying it around all day. So far no one had mentioned it one way or the other. It was the price of not reeking all day long, towel theft, so he did it.
The walk home was peaceful at least, no snow had fallen yet, December or not. Being in the Pacific Northwest the trees were all evergreens. That meant that instead of walking back through first the local community college campus and then the town's central park with a desolate landscape of skeletal trees, it just looked... green. There was even grass still. One of the nice things about living in Vancouver, Washington. The weather was never all that harsh. Or it wasn't most of the time. They had the occasional storm of course, but didn't everyplace?
The apartment complex he lived in was low rent, a set of brown boxes on top of another. It wasn't a slum, but not as nice as they could have afforded either, not even close. Most of the tenants were college students that attended school not a quarter mile away. It was convenient for them, so why wouldn't they live there for a while?
His mom just couldn't be bothered to move, spending most of her time working anyway. It was just what she liked to do, pushing herself, not some desperate scramble for money to pay the bills or anything. Most days she only came home to sleep, so why should she bother finding anything else?
The place was on the second floor, number four, it had a plain gray welcome mat and a bit of dead plant in a large black pot from the last summer. His work, putting it out to try and dress the place up a tiny bit. No one had noticed at all, but that was fine. They were dead now anyway. Everything died, eventually, didn't it? He'd fought to keep it going as long as possible though, but even here it just eventually got too cold at night for the little guys.
The place was quiet.
Too quiet.
His mother didn't like to leave anything running when she left, no music or television, especially lights, so it was always like walking into a tomb when he first came home. Except that it lacked spiders and the scent of old mold. Dark, but not dank. Eerily silent, but failing to be haunted at all. Kind of lame that way. A ghost would really liven the place up.
Josh liked music. Not the loud head banging kind, but classical, instrumental pieces, things like that. Uplifting things that weren't popular and hadn't been in eighty years or more. It wasn't something he shared with the kids at school though. People already thought he was weird. Too smart, too shy and too... Well, honestly most people didn't think of him at all, did they? It just wouldn't come up he guessed, not for most of them.
He flipped on the little black and silver radio in the tiny half kitchen, which had been turned to an all eighties station, just in time to hear that he could win something lame if only he were the eighty-eighth caller. That didn't last, the classical station was the last one on the dial so it got tuned in quickly, the play of clashing songs and talk rolling over him as it happened. Finally the dial got in place and he moved to start cleaning for the day. Josh did the cleaning for the family.
All of it.
Sixteen or not. Boy or not. If he didn't do it, it wouldn't be done. Not that Mercy was sloppy, she was just never there other than to sleep and occasionally hint that something else could be done around the place. Her secretary from work, Joanie, was there nearly as often, looking in on him or occasionally coming for dinner, sometimes even without Mercy being there. Joanie was cool like that.
Josh had a routine, the dishes first, then vacuum the whole place and make sure that if there was a load of laundry in either bedroom, it got done. Once a week he did the bedding. At least they had their own washer and dryer, nice, fairly new, white things they'd gotten when they first moved in five years before. Six now he realized.
Had it really been that long?
His dad had left them suddenly six Christmases ago. Three days left to the anniversary of that. So, yeah. T'was the season.
Carl had left them for another woman, who he'd gotten pregnant. So they'd moved from the big house that they'd all shared across town, to here, and just stayed in place. His dad still lived there with Katherine and their new kid, Marley. Josh sighed with a bit of energy. Sure, he missed the bigger, much nicer, place, but this one worked well enough. He'd hate to have to clean six rooms each day anyway.
That done and it really didn't take long, not doing it daily, he sat at the little dining room table that had four chairs, all nice looking wood in a deep brown that was almost black, even though they rarely got used more than one at a time, and pulled out the big beat up envelope and the smaller white one from Amy.
Josh knew that he should be intrigued, even hopeful, because it was a point of contact that really shouldn't have been there. It was maddening in a way, because if he didn't read it, then it could say anything. It could even say that she loved him. Or didn't think he was a complete waste of space. Or it could be a party invitation. Anything.
Sure, it could also be a six dollar coupon for hamburgers just as well, or a suggestion that he stop staring at her like a freak.
It was probably that.
He did look at her a lot and really, Josh knew, he shouldn't be. They were friends. Sort of. Just thinking about her stole his breath away though. It was really hard not to glance at her when he could.
“Yay. I'm mentally stalking a girl. Whee. That's not strange at all. Nope, perfectly normal.” This got said out loud, which made him jump slightly, since he hadn't meant to.
Well, no time like the present. If it was basically telling him to get lost and leave her alone, dealing with that now would be better than the day before he went back to school. It would give him a chance to figure out what to do. Taking a single deep breath he opened the small white square. It was...
A Christmas card.
Ah.
That made some sense. It was around Christmas and she had said it was a card, hadn't she? Just a card.
It had bunnies on the front in pale brown, hopping around a pastel colored green tree with a model train underneath. He exhaled and opened it, expecting it to just be signed, or maybe say “Merry Christmas!”
but it had a tidily written note instead.
Josh,
We used to be such good friends- I'm not sure what happened, but I don't want to lose that. If I hurt you, I'm sorry.
Much Love,
Amy
The words were clear enough, but didn't make sense at all. He liked her a lot, yes. Josh had for a long time. They'd never been that good of friends though, had they? They talked before and after class and worked together during it sometimes. They didn't hang out. OK, he'd been talking to her less lately, but that was just him not trying to be pushy.
Well, obviously to her it meant he was mad at her or something.
Great.
He didn't even know her phone number or anything, to tell her it was all good. Or confess that he loved her and that was why he'd pulled back. Josh wasn't in her league and it was just wrong to make her put up with him following her around like a puppy. It had sounded kind of noble to him at first. Protecting her from being pulled down by him socially or something.
It did hurt though. But that wasn't her fault. She was just great all the time. Josh wasn't. That was all.
He looked at the way she signed it, “Much Love”. His heart sang for about twenty seconds. Did that mean she loved him?
It didn't. He knew that.
She was nice all the time, so she probably would have signed it the same way if she were telling him to go kill himself. Still, wanting to be friends wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to him. It was something in a big world that had offered nothing to him for a very long time. Not anything that he wanted.
Josh tucked it away in the envelope and set it aside for later. He had ten full days to think about it and figure out what to do. If anything. Maybe the best course would be to just let her think he was mad at her or bored and didn't want to be friends? Not best for him, but for her?
To distract himself he opened the larger envelope, which felt almost greasy under his fingers, a bit old and grimy. When he opened it two things came out, a large notebook, spiral bound and thick, with little taped on dividers in different colors and a tiny box of Crayola crayons. The outside of the notebook was covered in a tidy fashion that had obviously taken care on someone's part with a brown paper bag book cover, which looked decently new, if not perfectly so. In multiple colors on the front it said Crayons. That was all. A title? Who put book covers and titles on spiral bound notebooks. It seemed like a lot of extra work.