Heat - 2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When I get home I find my aunt has left a casserole on the dining table. She also cleaned the house in her usual haphazard way, shoving things into closets and behind the couch to make the room appear marginally neater. I’m not hungry so I shove the dish into the mostly empty fridge. I guess I’m gonna have to buy food at some point. When I close the refrigerator door I am confronted with a list of groceries that my father had written and stuck to the door with a magnet from our trip to Las Vegas three years ago. “Eggs, Bacon, Bell Peppers, Corn, don’t forget to call the internet company”. I need to do something, anything. I turn on the tv. Some sitcom about young people living in a far-off coastal city that I’ll never visit. Perfect.

I don’t think for several hours until I get hungry enough to risk trying my aunt’s cooking. This time I don’t look at the list. It’s edible. Not good but not bad either. When I’ve finished I take my dish to the sink and notice a paper laying on the counter where I dropped it when I came in this morning. It’s the boy’s number. I also realize that I am still wearing his tight yellow shirt. I pull out my phone and dial the number. It goes to voicemail and a chipper voice answers

“Hey, this is Ash!” and then there is an extended silence with occasional shuffling before the beep.

“Uh… hi. This is Kenan. From before. I have your bag and stuff. Call me back.” It wasn’t until after I hung up that I realized I forgot to leave a number. So I call again and leave a somehow even more awkward follow up message with my phone number and also address for some reason. I think I’ve gotten too far away from the situation because I’ve forgotten how annoying he was and am suddenly thinking about the way that he looked in running shorts. Which, as I’m sure you know, is not a line of thought that is particularly conducive to reasonable conversation. He did burn my third favorite shirt though.

...

It’s about two hours later when I hear a knock on my front door. I’d busted out the last carton of ice cream and was just about halfway through the pint, so I put it down on the table and paused the tv. To my surprise and annoyance, standing on my doorstep was Asher. “Um… hi?” I say, somewhat surprised to find this weirdo pyromaniac pretty boy on my stoop.

“Hey. You asked me to come pick up my stuff? Also, you’re wearing my shirt.” He points at my chest, still proudly declaring my love of both the Iowa State Fair and the color yellow.

“Oh. Right. Come in.” Suddenly I feel like crawling into a bush somewhere and just staying there forever. Why am I embarrassed? He burned my shirt.

I scoop up the bag with his clothes suddenly very aware of how obvious it was that I had been digging around in it. He takes it from me and then just sort of stands there looking at me. “Uhh…” He gestures.

“Oh! Right… you want me to…” I start to pull off the shirt and then realize that I am both a dumbass and inside my own house. “I’ll just go upstairs. You wait here.” In my room I realize that I am freaking out and I’m not sure why. Something just threw me off when I suddenly saw Asher, standing at my front door. Why am I so worried about this stuff. I should be pissed at him. My third favorite shirt! I take off his shirt and switch to my fourth favorite shirt.

Back downstairs and he has moved to the living room. He’s looking at a photo of my mom and my little sister from a fishing trip a few summers ago. I don’t comment, just hold out his shirt. “There you go. You’re welcome, I guess? You owe me a shirt.” He nods and takes it from me.

“I’m really sorry. Sometimes I can’t help it. Can you not… tell anybody about this?” he reaches into his pocket and hands me a twenty dollar bill. “For the shirt.”

“How can you not… whatever. Fine.” I pocket the twenty.

“So, is it just you here tonight?”

“... yeah. I live alone.” Never one to beat around the bush are you, Asher? Always cutting straight to the one thing you could say to hurt me.

“Really? For how long?” He smiles at me and for a half second I feel weird and kinda warm, like I’m pointing my face directly at the sun on a clear day or standing too close to a fireplace.

“Two weeks. Today was supposed to be my first day back to school. After.”

“After? After wh… oh. You… oh. I didn’t know.” Suddenly he hugs me. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been awful to you haven’t I? Oh man, that’s why you were... Damn, I’m so sorry.”

He pulls me tighter and I’m suddenly aware of exactly how close we are to each other. Pressed like this, tight and chest to chest, waist to - I push him off me, a little too hard, and jump back a foot or so. “Yeah. Very sad. Anyway, don’t you have somewhere to be?” I straighten my fourth best shirt.

He looks a little hurt and now I feel bad for brushing him off. “Yeah. I’ll go ahead and go, if you’re…” he looks over at the still paused tv and half pint of now liquid ice cream “busy. But before I do, would you be willing to train with me? Please? I’ll do anything. Tryouts are in a month and I want to be ready.” His eyes beg and I am annoyed to find myself wavering under their gaze.

“Fine. You can come with me on my runs in the morning. Where do you live?” He gives me his address which is only about three blocks out of the way of my normal running path. “Ok, I’ll be running by your house at about five fifteen tomorrow morning. Be ready, because I won’t slow down.”

“I will! Thank you so much!” He starts to go in for another hug but backs off when he sees me flinch. “Ok. See you tomorrow!” Then he turns and again he actually jogs away, out my door and down the street.