• How to Go Nowhere Faster

    Andy

    I fiddled with the corner of my shirt nervously, looking up, biting my lip, and looking back down once more. Conversation had never been my strong point and with Jessie sitting across from me I found that I couldn’t say a damn thing because really, we had nothing in common. I wished that Brian would hurry up. It was always easier to talk when he was there. But instead I was left alone with Jessie and the silence had gone on so long that it was becoming painful.

    We were sitting in Shibly’s in one of the booths that had probably once been grand, but was now faded with age and years of use. I was chipping the flaking blue paint off the table with my fingernail and dared to look up at Jessie once more.

    She was just sitting there staring at me. Staring. It sort of freaked me out. I averted my gaze and looked down at the menu in front of me. We hadn’t ordered anything yet and I could pretty much feel the waitresses glare daggers into my neck as they passed.

    She started to speak, almost hesitantly “Listen, An-“ when she was almost immediately interrupted as Brian thankfully came into view. I muttered my relief under my breath.

    “Hey guys! Sorry I took so long, Gibson’s a murderer!” Gibson was Brian’s gym teacher, the one who always made him stay after, convinced he could persuade Brian to join the school’s ailing football team. Brian always declined. “Too violent.” He’d say, “Footballs a dangerous sport, and I’m neither brave enough nor dumb enough to risk my balls out there.”

    “Nice hair, Jess.” Brian complimented. And I looked up. Sure enough, Jessie’s hair was significantly shorter, cropped short around her ears. I hadn’t even noticed. It made me feel like an a*****e.

    “ Yeah, it looks great.” I said loudly, and Jessie beamed. Brian plopped down in the open seat next to her, dropping his books loudly on the table. His dark hair was still damp with sweat and his eyes were smoldering.

    “Soccer.” He said, “We played soccer today, you shoulda seen it Andy, Mitchell Johnson kicked in a goal from center field.” When Brian was excited about something - which he usually was when it came to sports - he started talking with his hands. Right now they were moving wildly. “Mitch kicked it, it went flying and bam!” – Hand slapping the table in front of him, books falling to the floor, waitress sending us one of the dirtiest looks I had ever seen – “It went right in, the goalie jumped for it but anyone could see he would've never caught it.” He laughed and bent to pick his things off the floor, winking at the waitress and making her tight frown a little less tight.

    I didn’t understand why Brian liked sports so much. My gym years were a sad collage of missed baskets and failed fitness tests, with the occasional remark about how my thin physique made me look like a f**. But when Brian talked about it his face lit up as suddenly as a match after it’s struck.

    Jessie looked as bored with Brian’s speech as I was confused by it and was quick to change the conversational tide. “So, Mrs. Norton’s anyone? I heard she just got a big screen TV.”

    XOXO

    Mrs. Norton shouldn’t have been called Mrs. though she had been married at some point, she sure wasn’t now; which was almost sad I always thought, because it wasn’t like she was old or anything. In fact she was only about thirty-five and had a young looking face with few wrinkles and warm, chocolate eyes. She had a small house, with a small yard, and a small office in which she did her work (whatever she did for a living though had always been a mystery to me) and she also had a big, spoiled cat named Chuck.

    Chuck was a ginger tabby cat that was treated like (and thought he was) a human.

    Chuck was a great excuse to go to Mrs. Norton’s house and raid her fridge

    Chuck was sitting on my lap and my allergies were driving me crazy.

    “Can someone get this friggin cat off me?”

    Brian looked up from the videogame that Jessie was currently beating him at. “Oh, right. You’re allergic aren’t you?” He pops a chip from the bag on the table in his mouth with one hand and lifts Chuck off of my lap with the other. “Sorry man.”

    I shrug and start picking cat hair off my jacket. Disgusting.

    I hear a cheer. Jessie, as always, has won the game and Brian looks properly miffed. He’s muttering something. “…beat me, why does she always beat me?”

    I couldn’t help but burst into laughter, and Brian looked up, eyes questioning: are you laughing at me? I sent him a look back that very clearly said that yes, I was. And soon Brian had tackled me and we were wrestling on the floor and Jessie said something that sounded suspiciously like “Boys.”

    Then everything seemed to slow for a minute, and I noticed that Brian was basically on top of me, he had my hands pinned to my sides and he was grinning. And then all of the sudden he wasn’t. His grin faded into something so much more soft, almost sad – delicate. And his breaths turned into pants and I closed my eyes and gulped, gulped because what I was feeling was almost painful.

    But then Jessie turned off the TV and I heard her say loudly that maybe we should start cleaning up. And then Brian was getting off me and dusting off his pants, and Chuck was begging for tuna or treats or something and I was still lying on the ground, panting; trying to ignore what my bewildered heart was telling me.