Quarter Mile

Detention

All weekend, Dakota wanted to text Beck. He wanted to know why he was feeling the way he was. But, he couldn't put into words what he was feeling.

He typed message after message, letting them sit in the message bar for a minute before deleting them all, never to be read by another person.

Beck, what is this feeling? Delete.

Am I gay? Delete.

What are you doing right now? Delete.

Help me understand, please. Delete.

Why did you kiss me, Beck? Delete.

Finally, on Sunday night, after hours and hours of contemplating whether or not he should message, after trying to distract his mind with homework, playstation, anything, after eating his dinner with his mother in complete and utter silence, he decided on a simple message:

Dakota
what's your favourite colour?

Beck replied almost immediately.

Beck
yellow

Dakota smiled at the simple word written across his screen. Yellow. Yellow, yellow, yellow. In a strange way, it encompassed Beck. The way he looked at Dakota, the way his eyes shone as he talked about the stars, his long blonde hair blowing in the wind. Everything about him screamed yellow, yet it didn't, at the same time.

His thoughts were interrupted by his mother hovering by his bedroom door.

"Hi, honey."

"Hi, mum."

"How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. You can come in, you know," Dakota said, noticing his mother was still standing at the door. She stepped inside, gingerly sitting beside Dakota on his bed.

"How's school going? Have you made any friends? I'm sorry I haven't been the most attentive mum these past couple of weeks."

Dakota reached his hand out to his mother's, taking it and resting both their hands on his leg. "Mum, you don't need to apologise. I know how tough it is for you right now, you don't have to pretend to be strong for me."

She nodded, smiling weakly at her son, wondering how she got to be so lucky. Dakota continued. "School is good so far and I've met some cool friends."

"I'm so glad to hear that, Duh."

Duh was a nickname his mother had given to him when he was five. Dakota had been jumping on his mother's bed one morning. She had told him multiple times to 'stop jumping and get down, you're going to hurt yourself.' Dakota wasn't listening, he was having the time of his life. But then, just as his mother was telling him 'whatever, it's your fault if you get hurt', he had slipped on the duvet and fell, knocking his mother's lamp off the bedside table.

"Oh my God, honey, are you okay? Are you hurt?" She had said, running over to her son who was now sitting on the bed, crying. Not crying because he was hurt, but crying because he had broken his mother's favourite lamp. After several minutes of sobbing into his mother's chest, Dakota had wiped his eyes and asked, "do you still love me?"

His mother had grabbed his face, pulled it close to hers, giggled, and said, "Dako-DUH!"

The nickname Duh had stuck. And Dakota didn't mind, because it reminded him of the time when he'd broken the lamp but all his mother had cared about was him.

"What are their names?" His mother asked, snapping him back to reality.

"Well, there's Parker, who showed me around on my first day. He's really cool and made me feel so comfortable." His mother smiled. "And he introduced me to Eli and Harvey. They're super cool too. Eli is loud and hilarious and Harvey just always knows what to say." His smile grew more as he talked about his friends.