And He Was Gone - 3. Three

The next morning all but killed me. I binged just a little bit too much, smoked a little bit too much, and threw fists just a little bit too much last night. As well, I had a flashy fall when trying to sneak back into bed without being noticed. At least I wasn’t caught.

Alarm clocks are evil. Especially the one Mom bought for me. It just rings and rings and never stops. Crawling from the bed was a struggle unto itself, and dragging my leaden body to the sink made me pity Ms. Bridge. Was this what she had to go through every morning, pulling that body of hers from the sheets and to her closet?

I snorted a laugh, looked in the mirror through puffy eyes and examined a bruise on my right cheek, kindly inscribed by Tom, the school terrorist. It was a funny shape, edges of light green curling upwards into what resembled a mutated heart, the bottom vertex fingering my swollen lip. My straight nose even looked slightly crooked.

I looked like E.T.

The shower called for me, and I slipped in, whipped up my body with soap, and flew out clean and looking like a hot E.T. but still not completely awake. I wolfed down breakfast, exchanged greetings and beatings with my family, and hopped into Mom’s red Toyota with my two older brothers tailing the car, flinging chunks of pie at me. I had dispensed a tub full of half melted ice cream over their heads earlier. The morning ritual.

“You guys should stop that.” Mom said irritably, shaking her dark locks from her face, hazel eyes sharpening as she slammed to a stop at a red light. I had shrugged, and made sure to wipe off all traces of hostility from my face just in case she was going to have another spazz attack.

Mom was rather strict when it came down to the fights that flew between my brothers and me, despite the fact that her parental morals came loose when I whipped up a few beers. Perhaps it had something to do with the way Father had left us, and she wanted to strive hard to at least achieve a stable family bond here. That was one of the things that I was able to move past, but also one of the things that Mom could not. Ever.

Either way, I hated it when she ranted, and was deeply relieved when all she did was mutter a few choice curses, and let the sound of the motor prevail over the silence. It was a buzzing, almost nervous quiet, really. I had track and field; three thousand meter race today, and so my mind was definitely at my current shape. Party yesterday may have proven to be a mistake, and I spent the majority of the car ride pouting about my pounding temple.

That is, until I saw Devin for the second time.

We had sped past the city blocks, and the road was opening to a short highway, hills carpeting the land like frozen waves in a green ocean. The sun was half veiled in curtains of morning clouds, sunlight hitting sporadic patches of the railway that locked in parallel with us.

I remember the moment quite clearly this time for I had nothing to distract me. No Frisbees, no pollen, no sounds. It was just me, anchored to the seat with my legs lying on the shoulders of the front seat, arms crossed, hazel eyes half shut, thinking about that track meet, chewing my lower lip slightly, barely breathing. It was then.

I didn’t really recognize him as the boy that I thought had been a spirit at first, but the way he walked… there was something about the way he walked that had me sitting up like a dog when it’s called by its owner.

Mom noticed too, and she shot a glance through the corner of her lashes.

As we drew closer, I could make out details -- his weathered clothes, sun shaded skin, a torn backpack slung over his strong shoulders, his easy step and the warm breeze whistling through his light hair. He shot a glance as we locked positions, and for a second, we were one, speeding towards infinity. It was strange. We were quite far apart, really, but it felt like we were running side by side.

Like a scene straight from a movie.

But, this particular scene didn’t last long enough for my liking. Mom’s red Toyota sped past, and even as I cranked my head back, I knew he had already disappeared.

Oh well.

I took the next few seconds memorizing his face, and finding, with surprise, that it was already seared into my vision.

**

There’s this feeling, when you know nothing is going to happen, yet you feel the opposite branded into your gut and it takes over your brain and your heart and you weigh the possibilities, reversing it and tipping it upside down… it really is hard to explain. The kind of feeling when you want something that you know won’t come around, but you wish for it all the same, just hoping and hoping until all the tendons and nerves in your body congeals and you can’t feel anything anymore.

I pondered the sleepless nights I’ve wasted, striking up staring contests with the ceiling and wondered if it’s actually going to happen to me. Wondering if I’m going to be stuck looking all happy, cocky and couldn’t-care-less on the outside, but dead and whimpering on the inside.

So, I spent the rest of the car ride to school drowning myself in my own misery until I reached the front door with five minutes to spare, just to receive a blow to the face by a wandering Frisbee.

I had a rather annoying start to a day, and it was accented when Mark greeted me beside my locker with Stacy Mars by his side. He had his arm wrapped around her ass and his tongue down her throat. I thought of emergency dildos.

“Yo,” He said, grinning, and frowned when I shut the locker and turned in the opposite direction to my English class. The wave of people thickened as the hallway widened, bodies cascading down stairs and through the levels, heavy scents of sweet perfumes and cold, eye lined pupils scanning me hungrily, claws raking my shoulders, voices layered in sheets of laughter, and yet, all I could make out were the couples, paired by the walls, all separate in their own little happy bubble…

It was pathetic, really.

I was ten seconds late for my Socials class and locked out.

**

I returned from the track meet with an irritable buzz in my ear. A kid from the other school tripped me during the one hundred meter sprints, and so I had gotten myself into a fight. Again.

I wasn’t caught of course, but the stupid fuck proved to be more than just a push over. Mark was in the middle of discus throw when things spun out of hand, and backed me up with his fancy footwork. I escaped with two black eyes and a bruised ego.

However, I beat Perry in the three thousand meter so that was something worth celebrating about -- not that I was in the mood.

The afternoon sky had absorbed so much sunlight it was closer to white than blue, the haze of the heat crying rivers of liquid silver on the concrete of our school. It was beautiful in the modern, boring kind of way. The ring of the bell signified the start of the last block, and so I saluted to Perry and his friends who were a year older than me, and leaped off to P.E.

Not what I needed. I thought about skipping, but then again, I had skipped way too many blocks than what was acceptable, and so dismissed the thought. Perhaps Coach would let loose on the basketball.

I was wrong.

Basketball had never been my sport. It was weird. I could do European handball, baseball, soccer, football, whatever ball -- but just not basketball. There was something stupid about bouncing a ball in between your legs that I could just not define, and so I had never put any effort in it, and if I had, it was to raise a fist to knock someone off their feet.

It was the same for today, except my effort had been replaced. I didn’t think much about it at first, but as half an hour zoomed past and all I could think about was the boy, I was beginning to worry. I thought about his clothes, how the cargo pants hung around his waist and flapped in the wind. I thought about his straight nose, his dark, clear eyes that were like pools of amber. I thought about his hair. I thought about his lips. His built frame beneath his tee; thick, smooth, lithe. His eyebrows. His sharp jaw. I thought about the way he walked, how it was so together, so flowing… and yet, so out of place.

You could tell a lot from the way people moved. The steps he had taken, I reminisced, were not too slow, not too fast… as though he knew where he was going but was in no hurry. Yea. An easy step. But there was something else, too, the way his head turned my way as the car had driven in level with him. There was something inside, as though he was carrying something broken and was afraid someone would take it from him. What was it? Someone lost? Anger to be smothered? No. His expression was too serene for that.

I continued to study and debate over the photograph in my head, heart sometimes even flipping, then stopped abruptly when the basketball rammed into the side of my face.

“Shawn Cotlin! What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

I stumbled back, rubbed my jaw, glared at the furious Coach, then back at my assaulter.

“What’s up?” Smiled Tom. He had a charming smile, really, even though you wouldn’t ever hear me say it; shiny blue eyes that creased up in the corners and teeth as white as paper. His white-blond hair was slicked back and with his sculpted body, he would have passed as my high school sweet-heart… if he wasn’t such a jerk.

Half of the school was either my friend, or my enemy. And Tom, being the school terrorist, landed on the latter. And the thing is, he had no fear.

And neither do I.

I didn’t reply, and wiped my face free from emotion as he studied my face. No, analyzed. His eyes were like X-rays, cold, piercing, probing.

He winked at my heart shaped bruise and flipped to the other side of the court, waggling his tongue.

It was on.

Whistle. Game Point. I watched as the players on my team whipped the ball back and forth; from Oliver to Perry, to Mark, and he leapt for the hoop… and the defense stole the ball, lobbed it to Tom, and it was a one man show.

Jeers and shouts rang throughout the court, and I raced in to mingle with the scattering players, examining my position as my arch nemesis approached, letting the ball flow in a whir of orange. I could smell sweat, panic, and the faint drizzle of Axe, the mint from his breath as he sneered, and as he drew close and raced next to me; he threw his elbow out, intending to catch me in the ribs.

It was over really fast. He may have more strength than me, but I had the speed and the element of surprise. I caught his elbow, drove my knuckles into his face, and flung out my knee into his gut; and at the same time, Perry stole the ball, grinning. Coach didn’t see anything.

Tom recovered just as fast, his face a mask of writhing rage. I shrugged, just as Mark swished the ball through the hoop, ending the game.

“You’ll pay for that,” Tom hissed, and suddenly, his expression melted back to that calm, collected neutrality. A grin broke his face, and I could see traces of blood lacing his teeth. It chilled me to the bone.

But of course, I didn’t let him see that he had rattled me, and nonetheless just simply winked at the bruise forming at his right cheek, waggled my tongue, and swaggered out through the doors when Coach dismissed us.

“That was some move,” laughed Mark as we toweled our heads and hurried to the front of the school before the hallways became congested.

I grinned back. “He was bound it get his ass whupped someday, and I guess he just caught me in a bad mood.”

“Ah. Shawn has some fucking fangs.”

“Uh huh.”

“You do realize, he’s going to call up his friends someday and have the brains raked out from your skull?”

“Uh huh.” I repeated, backhanding Perry and blowing kisses at Stacy and her group as they passed by. “I don’t really care, actually. That fatass can’t catch me even if he tried.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. What happens if one of his friends accidentally trips you?”

I smacked him in the face while he rolled out his laughs, imitating the way I fell at the track meet. He got his ass whupped too.

And for some reason, even though the majority of the day had been nothing short of annoying, I managed to postpone my staring contest with the ceiling that night.