The wind has picked up speed throughout the day and I listen to Sherry worry to Mark about her bunches of chrysanthemums she had just planted in a few of large pots that decorated the front porch of the house. Mark reassures her and states that they can handle cold temperatures, but I can still detect her shudder every time the wind blows against the kitchen window and causes the wood that lines the glass to creak.
My chemistry textbook is open on the island as I scribble words and letters onto my notebook paper that are less legible than that of a kindergartener’s handwriting, unlike my natural penmanship. Sherry is making some sort of casserole by the oven, but I didn’t care to listen earlier when she described the name of it and its ingredients. I didn’t want to waste time trekking up the stairs to my room just to come back down again, so my backpack remains thrown onto the floor next to the bar stool and my sweatshirt and shoes still stay on my body. I’m surprised Sherry hasn’t coerced me to clean up my belongings and take my shoes off in her immaculate house she spends so much time cleaning.
I want to believe that she and my uncle have had a change of heart from the words they spoke yesterday about my father. Other than James, it was all I could think about at school today. It pained me to have the thought that someone can attend his funeral while thinking that there is a possibility that he caused the car accident.
Sherry pulls the casserole dish from the double oven and sets it on the black stovetop before setting down her floral oven mitts next to the dish. “I took half the day off work and went shopping. I bought you a few outfits that are more appropriate for the funeral rather than sweatpants and t-shirts. The dress pants are wider around the leg, so hopefully they fit over your-,” she stops herself and points to my leg casually as if the word ‘cast’ is used as profanity in this house.
I shift uncomfortably in my seat and hook my feet around the legs of the bar stool. “Thank you,” I reply, barely listening to her as I focus on my homework. I use my pencil to tuck a strand of dark hair behind my ear and lean closer as I write the answer to the last question in my notebook.
Mark retrieves a glass from the cabinet and fills it with ice from the fridge before topping it off with filtered water. Sherry pulls a stack of three plates from the adjacent cabinet and sets them on the counter, and then Mark takes the stack towards the dining room across from the kitchen.
Great.
I tilt my head down to conceal my eye roll and slap my textbook closed before tossing it into my backpack near my feet. I wanted to eat and hurry out the door towards the park, but it seems like Sherry and Mark want to use the dining room table for a proper ‘family’ dinner for once. Mark enters the kitchen again and finds three forks in one of the drawers and exits back into the dining room. My leg aches as I hop off of the bar stool and kick my backpack to the side so I don’t trip on it. I had eaten more lunch at school than yesterday, but I assume that refusing dinner again won’t slide by with my aunt.
One of the light bulbs in the chandelier flickers as I sit down at one of the sage green chairs at the ivory colored dining table. Mark catches me closing my eyes at the headache it’s causing, so he places a knee on one of the chairs and reaches up to screw it back into its socket. Sherry finally enters with the casserole dish in her mitted hands and places it on a towel that Mark had laid out on the table to protect the wood. She disappears again and returns with a decorative bowl filled with green beans and a basket of rolls she had prepared earlier. I’m not sure why she insists on dirtying decorative dishes since it’s not like we are having a large family gathering or a house party of some sort. My eyes track the green beans she places on the table and my stomach lurches at the thought of the green beans I had stomached in the hospital, although her green beans appear much more flavorful and seasoned.
I set my crutches against the table near the corner and steady them so they don’t slip. Sherry passes all of the food towards me and allows me to scoop the casserole and a roll onto my plate, but I politely decline the green beans. Sherry raises an eyebrow, but she ignores it and passes the rest to the middle of the table where she and Mark can easily reach them.
I shovel the food into my mouth, eager to finish quickly. I earn a few strange glances from both of them as they take their time with their food. Mark chuckles as he takes a bite, but Sherry questions me. “Did you not eat lunch at all today?”
My head bobbles with a nod while I cover my mouth with my hand, trying to chew and swallow my mouth full of food quickly. “I did,” I utter in between chews.
“You seem hungry,” she adds as a matter of fact.
I shake my head and swallow the last bit in my mouth. “A little.” I can’t tell her my reasoning is because of my overload of homework because it wouldn’t make sense once I leave to head to the park, so I decide to slightly tell her the truth. “I wanted to go back to that park. A friend said he would meet me there.” I want to slap myself for saying it, but I don’t know what other excuse I have.
“Oh, you made a friend,” Sherry chimes and clasps her hands together in front of her face in excitement.
“What’s his name?” Mark asks as he takes another bite of the casserole.
I wave a hand in front of my face and curl the side of my mouth. “I say ‘friend’ lightly. We met at the park yesterday. His name is James.”
Mark raises an eyebrow and turns his head towards me. “Hanging out?” he asks while motioning air quotes with one of his hands. I hear Sherry kick him from under the table and she flashes a smile towards me as if to appear innocent. I’m not sure if I should feel insulted by Mark questioning whether I was telling the truth about truly hanging out.
Sherry leans slightly to her left and places her elbows on the table with her head resting on the back of her hand. “How old is he?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. About my age, I think.” I take my last bite of casserole and begin to ask to be excused when I forget that I haven’t eaten my roll, so I snatch the butter that is just within reach and use my knife to scoop out just enough.
“Does he go to your school?” Mark continues.
I shake my head with another mouthful of food before I swallow. “No. He doesn’t live super close.” I shove the last of the roll in my mouth and chew furiously before wiping my hands on the napkin sitting neatly next to my plate. “May I be excused?”
Sherry and Mark exchange glances and then agree in unison. I stand up with my dirty plate in my hands, but Mark allows me to set it back on the table and tells me that he will take it to the sink later. It surprises me that they allow me to leave the table, but I’m thankful that they do. I take my napkin and fork with me as I grab my crutches. I throw my napkin in the kitchen trash can and toss my fork into the sink. They grow silent as I hurriedly make my way towards the front door as fast as my crutches will carry me.
From an outside perspective, I always found it appalling to see girls in school flock inside and eager to see their boyfriends after having seen them the day prior, and it’s a foreign sensation to have butterflies in my stomach in hopes that James will be there. I had never experienced so much as a crush before. At least, not to this extent.
But there is something about him that draws me so close.
The wind gusts flip my hair every which way and I have to stop for a moment to tuck my dark hair into the hood of my sweatshirt so I’m not blinded in the street. I watch a car pull into the driveway of a neighboring house and an older woman steps out, staring at the strange girl who decided to use crutches as transportation rather than asking her family to drive her down the street. The woman clicks a button on her key fob and the sedan honks, the back lights flashing as she locks it. She shoots me another judgmental glance before she makes her way to her front door and disappears inside.
After a few minutes, I finally reach the park and collapse onto the seat of the wooden picnic table, my body exhausted and my underarms sore. I let my crutches fall to the ground, not caring if they get a little dirty from the hard earth beneath them. I take a second to catch my breath and lean over to take in my surroundings. I’m surprised to see two little boys playing on the large playset just across the clearing and I listen to them argue about which role they would fill in the game they are playing. I wish life was that simple nowadays.
I turn my head towards the table and scan it for my phone that I assume I had left here, but the table is bare. I duck down and check under the table for any sign of it, but my hopes drop when I see nothing but an absence of grass where the sun has not penetrated the soil. My shoulders drop and I raise my head in desperation wondering if one of the neighborhood kids has found it before I was able to. Or maybe James waited for an opportunity last night and snagged it while I wasn’t looking. My eyes dance across the ground and I spot the area where James stood the night before, the dragged path of dirt catching my eye. I twist my head sideways and follow the path to see a formation I hadn’t noticed before. ‘K’. He had dragged the ground with his foot to form a ‘K’.
Kristen with a ‘K’.
A twig snaps behind me and I whip my head around, but I’m disappointed to see a few squirrels scurry out of the line of trees and chase each other up their bark. Another gust of wind flies across the park and I shiver in its embrace, shrinking into a small ball on the picnic bench. The light post across the clearing is stripped of any light, and I wonder to myself if it is a solar light. The sky is still bright yet clouded unlike the stars I had seen the night before. Despite the cold, I want to see the stars appear and the color to fade to darkness.
So I wait.
I cling onto the hope that James appears again and saves me from loneliness, but my hope begins to fade with the daylight as each minute switches to an hour. By this time, I’m beginning to let go of the hope that I will ever see my phone again. The pictures with my dad are gone and I’m unsure if my phone carrier will be able to retrieve all of my data without the original phone. I’m going to have to tell my aunt and uncle that I lost it or that my new ‘friend’ might have possibly stolen it. Although my thoughts are in my head, I make an annoyed face at the conversation I’m having with myself.
The two boys on the playset are long gone after whining to their parents when they arrived to take them home, begging them to stay so they can play longer. The light post I have deemed as a solar light or a light set on a timer is now bright and attracting its usual swarm of gnats. I used the bathroom in the community building once since I arrived, but I made it quick in fear that I would just miss James and he would leave during my absence. Maybe I did miss him while I was in the bathroom.
“Looking for me?”
My butt slides off the edge of the table as he startles me, but he catches my arm just as I am about to fall off. His strength stops me and I catch the bottom of my cast on the picnic bench which causes me to yelp from the pain that shoots down my leg.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry,” he calls out as he climbs onto the top of the table next to me and hoists the rest of my body backwards towards him. I wince at the pain and lean forward, placing my hand on my leg that throbs under the cast. He spews out apologies and swings his long legs over the side of the table until he’s sitting directly next to me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I manage to utter. I close my eyes and grunt, willing the pain to go away. “You just scared me.”
Finally, I open my eyes and breathe out the air I had trapped in my lungs. James leans closer to me with concern playing on his face.
“I thought you wouldn’t come,” I admit to him. I bring my eyes towards him and watch his dark hair lighten under the unnatural illumination of the pole. His arms are concealed under a dark green sweatshirt and he’s wearing light grey sweatpants comparable to mine. More laid back, but warmer unlike yesterday. He smells of a fresh shower and a hint of cologne.
“Well, I figured I might see you here again.” The cologne scent verifies that he had prepared himself to come across me, or at least somebody, while on his walk. He smiles a toothy grin and I catch myself blushing, so I pull my face away and use my long hair to cover my side profile. “And I figured you might be looking for this.” His hand reaches into his pocket and he reveals a familiar object.
“Where did you find it?” I ask eagerly and excitedly.
He hands me my cracked phone and it flashes on when I touch the button on the side, and I notice a few unread texts and a missed call from Miranda.
“You left it here last night. I came back this morning and it was on the table.” He raises his hands in front of him with his palms facing towards me. “I promise I didn’t go through it, but I did take it home and charge it for you.”
I sigh in relief and unlock it, clicking on my gallery and alleviating my concerns about the pictures still being there. “Thank you.”
James smiles once again and shrugs. “It was no bother, and it gave me an excuse to see you.” He touches his shoulder to mine to nudge me and I think any other girl would be uncomfortable by his actions, but I oddly feel like I’ve known him longer than what I really do.
My eyebrows furrow when I think about how he said he was just here this morning. “Didn’t you have school this morning? How old are you, anyways?”
He shakes his head. “I’m eighteen, and no. My school is on fall break this week.”
My throat emits a noise that sounds similar to a scoff. “You’re not going on a vacation with your family this week? Most people would be in Florida or California this week.”
“Well, most people have parents who like to travel, but my parents are homebodies. I guess I can’t really complain, though. I’m a homebody myself.”
I prop my elbows on the edge of the table and lean backwards. “Never thought about going to another state and getting out of Maryland just to experience new things?”
A breath escapes from his mouth and he leans back next to me against the table as well. His cologne tickles my nose as the wind blows in our direction and wafts it toward me. It’s a deep and sensual scent, yet not overpowering since he used just the right amount. “Maryland has all four seasons, a beach, and mountains. If I wanted to see beaches or mountains, I would just have to spend a little money for gas and that’s it. No plane ticket or hotel needed.”
“Yeah, but there’s only so much to see here before it gets too familiar. Beaches and mountains look totally different in other states. Don’t you want to see the Grand Canyon or walk through Times Square when the ball drops on New Years or see a volcano erupt?”
James chuckles slightly and it never occurred to me until now how attractive and genuine his laugh sounds. “If you’re close enough to see a volcano erupt, then I think you have bigger problems than just the craving to see another state.”
This time, he makes me laugh and I could see he finds enjoyment in making me do so. He’s witty and quick, a great difference from me. Another breeze flows through the fabric of my sweatshirt and I shiver again, my arms wrapping around myself to shield my body from the evening weather.
I see James watch me from the corner of my eye and without hesitation, he begins to take his own green sweatshirt off. He reveals the skin of his torso for a split second as his black long sleeve shirt underneath pulls upwards towards his shoulder blades and I try to refuse the sweatshirt as he places it in my lap. “Take it. I like the cold, remember?”
“I’m fine, really,” I try to convince him as I take the sweatshirt in my hands and attempt to hand it back to him, but he uses a hand to guide it back towards me.
“No, you’re not. You’re cold. I really don’t mind you wearing it. You don’t have to wear it. I can’t force you, but I’m not taking it back.”
Feeling defeated, I reluctantly find the bottom of the sweatshirt and pull it open before raising it and sliding it over my head. The lining is much warmer than my own and I wonder what I’m going to do once winter rolls around. I loathe winter like an enemy and celebrate the moment the flowers begin to bloom in the spring and the sun appears from behind the clouds from which it hides.
“It looks good on you. Green is your color.” My head turns to face him and I catch him staring at me with his pale blue eyes. His lashes are slightly longer than the average male’s and compliment their almond shape. I notice his clear complexion and begin to grow jealous seeing his skin free from a hint of blemishes. It took me years to perfect my skincare routine and I couldn’t help but envy those who are born with genes fit for healthy skin.
I blush again and look down, using my fingertips to play with the strings of his sweatshirt. The sweatshirt is too large for me, but just enough to where it’s comfortable and covers my own attire without feeling too tight or too loose. The sleeves are long and cover my hands, but I embrace their warmth as they flop over my icicles I have for hands.
“Are you guys not on fall break?” James asks to change the subject.
I shake my head. “No. Their fall break was last week and I just started at this school yesterday. It’s a hell hole in there and I don’t know anyone. I met one girl named Natalie, but that’s about it. I hate my history class. It’s boring and the teacher barely explains anything before giving us an assignment. I have no idea what I’m doing in that class. I don’t know anything about wars, what year they happened, who fought in them or who won them. I’m completely lost.”
“Well the French and Indian War, under misconception, was actually between Great Britain and France in 1754 and lasted until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, about thirty percent of the pilots in World War II died outside of the actual combat during pilot training, the Holocaust devastation killed about six million Jews, and the Vietnam War was -”
“Where are you going with this?” I interrupt with my eyebrows raised in disbelief.
I stare at the walking encyclopedia and the same smile appears on his face, so I curl my lips into a smile as well. “I can help you with your history stuff. If you want me to, that is.”
I hear the sound of an ambulance approaching in the distance and James and I turn to see the sirens whiz past our street. The sirens diminish into the darkness and I tilt my head up to watch the cloudless sky. The moon glares down upon us and a single star begins to appear faintly among the deep blue hues of the night sky. My chin falls downward and I turn my attention back to James, unmoving and watching me expectantly. His hair has darkened under the moonlight, but his eyes remain any icy blue, yet warm and inviting.
“I’d love that.”
I retrieve my phone from my pocket and check the time, noting that I still have a few hours to spend with him before the sky is black and filled with stars.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
