Needle and Thread

7

When Harry pulls into the driveway, he's surprised to find the front door propped wide open and the porch void of his grandmother's familiarly crooked figure. He cuts the engine with a shuddering jolt and opens the door. It creaks like old bones, grinding metallically. Harry winces.

Usually, by the time Harry arrives at the Olatunji house, his grandmother is already awaiting his arrival, apron in one hand and her pink rubber gloves in the other. She always smells like disinfectant, the lemon scented one she uses when she cleans. It's the same disinfectant she uses at home too. There's something lying in that fact, a partially formed thought, a tender connection between two homes. Harry doesn't linger on it.

It's only April, but the air is thick and heady, and it smells like summer. It doesn't make sense, but it seems that there's somewhat of a theme with each hour that passes. A theme of oddities, irregularities, and abnormalities. A theme Harry wishes he could write out of his story.

He leans against the side of his car for a minute or two, waiting on his grandmother's appearance. She fails to show, and the sun only gets hotter. A moment's hesitation comes and goes, and then Harry makes the unknowingly detrimental decision to enter the cavernous mouth of Jj's home.

It's sort of an unwritten rule that Harry should never enter the house unless an emergency calls for it. He can't remember if it was him or Jj that fashioned it out of tension-logged air. All he knows is that he doesn't cross the threshold, and Jj doesn't dare invite him in.

Harry feels like he's committing some sort of cardinal sin as he slips through the open door, an irreversible crime he will always be guilty of. He almost expects god to come down and smite him for it, with thunder and lightning and biblical storms.

Instead, it's as though Harry has stepped into Dante's ninth circle of Hell. The foyer is cold, all cool marble floors and empty white walls. It's quiet too, in that same empty way. He thinks about calling out for his grandmother, but that would only aid in alerting his unwanted presence - the very last thing he wants. For all he knows, Jj could be waiting around the corner, readying himself for a battle of wits or fisticuffs, neither of which Harry would put past him.

The house seems to only get colder as Harry dares to tread further inside, following the familiar route towards the kitchen on an unconscious autopilot function he didn't know he possessed until now. He hasn't stepped a single foot in this house since he and Jj last called themselves best friends, yet the familiarity lingers. In the tiny scuff on the otherwise flawless floor from when Harry and Jj got into a scuffle ten years ago. In the almost imperceptible smudge on the white wall, a result of a poorly aimed kick. In the frayed silk flowers sitting atop the hallway dresser from the time Jj offered them to a stray cat as a chew toy.

If memory lane were a real, visceral thing, then this would be it. This would be Harry's. This would be theirs . Jj's and-

Jj.

Harry bites back a sharp breath upon finding his old friend perched happily on the kitchen counter, a chocolate cookie in one hand and a wistful expression on his face as he gazes out of the large bay windows splayed across the wall behind the dining table.

This is it. This is his chance. While Jj is suitably distracted, he can turn around, make his escape, and wait in the car like he's supposed to. Like he was never here at all.

Of course, as with most plans concocted by yours truly, Harry finds that the odds are most certainly against him.

"Harry. Hi."

It's somewhat underwhelming, really, that these are the first words Jj has spoken to Harry in three years. A generic greeting and his name. Harry really can't help but wonder: is this it?

"Hi."

The 'Jide' lies on the tip of Harry's tongue, but he doesn't let the nickname fall. He doesn't think he has the right to use it anymore.

"Not to be rude," Jj says, undeterred, speaking through a mouthful of double chocolate chip, "but what are you doing in here?"

Not rude, just blunt. Like always.

"I was just, uh, just looking for my grandma," Harry responds, eyes flickering between the cookie in Jj's hand, the pile of folded laundry on the dining table, and the scuffed toes of his own shoes. He avoids meeting Jj's oppressive gaze at all costs.

"She's in the garden," He says, swinging his legs like a child balanced on a chair three times their size.

"The garden?"

"Where else do you think we hang out washing?"

Harry shrugs. "Tell her I'm waiting in the car?"

Jj stops chewing his cookie and gives Harry a long and invariably peculiar look. It's like he's trying to figure Harry out yet simultaneously knows everything about him. Unnerved. That's how Harry feels. Undoubtedly so. If that is Jj's intention, then the success is all his.

"Sure," He says eventually, eyes unwavering. The agreement is less of an agreement and more a reluctant acquiescence, like he doesn't particularly want to give into Harry's request but finds he has no real choice in the matter.

Harry attempts a close mouthed smile to express his gratitude, but he's sure it looks more like a terrified grimace. "Thanks," He says, just for good measure, in case the grim smile didn't quite get the message across.

He makes to leave the kitchen, although it's difficult to confirm whether or not he truly ever entered, but stops short when Jj speaks once more.

"Or you could just wait in here," He suggests, like everything is perfectly normal and Harry's heart isn't pounding a mile a minute in his chest. For three years Harry has thought that he and Jj are nothing to each other, neither enemy nor ally, but his fluttering heart and spinning head have him thinking that his calculations leave something to be desired.

"Uh-"

"It's hot outside," Jj shrugs, and then he takes another nonchalant bite from his cookie.

Harry doesn't say anything, listlessly watching Jj from his place by the door. The other boy looks like he always has, but more. Jj is taller, broader, and brighter than he ever was when he and Harry were friends. But that's just growing up, isn't it? Something Jj has always been the best at between the two of them.

What does Jj see when he looks at Harry? A grown up version of the boy he used to be? Or a scared little coward with a captured tongue? Whichever it is, Harry hates that Jj is looking at him at all.

"Um, okay," Harry nods. He doesn't sit down, or worse, clamber onto the counter beside Jj. He takes another handful of steps forward and leans against that very same counter with his clammy hands stuffed in his pockets.