Me, Myself, and I

dinner with the twins

Ben. That's all anyone ever seems to talk about these days. Alex is a much easier place to visit. Like his memories are an amusement park and anything around that stupid Wood family is nothing but a graveyard. He picked me up from my home the morning after high school graduation, we talked each other's ears off before finding a park bench and letting the silence sit. Let it sit, sit, sit.

Alex ruined it first.

"We graduated from high school yesterday."

The thought seemed unimaginable. And hearing it come out of Alex's mouth, right before kissing me on a park bench, didn't add to the sudden realism. I kissed him back and hoped the whole concept of being out of high school would disintegrate, but it didn't, rather couldn't, with his mouth flapping on about the whole ordeal every time he pulled away from me. I'd lost count after a while. He tasted like toothpaste. Watermelon. He couldn't handle mint.

"So," he said. We sat straight-spined against the wood. "I hear you're moving in with Brooke."

That little...

I ignored the image of her in my head, fingers crossed behind her back as she promises to say nothing. "I know it's a waste, but if we're stuck in Delcoph I might as well do something to prove my legal adulthood."

He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket, clicking one of the boxed links on his recently searched. "You know, plenty of millionaires and geniuses started off at community college. Eddie Murphy, Tom Hanks, George Lucas..." He kept going. Actors and authors, two fields whose successes were the equivalent of winning the lottery.

"I know. You're right." He was not right.

He leaned up and checked his watch, unlacing his fingers from mine. The short hand and long hand were in opposite directions. "We should get going. It'll be ready by twelve."

We walked holding hands. My sweaty palms did not dry off against his cold ones. He opened the door to his Audi, and I put the key in the ignition as he looped around the hood. I'd done the hard part yesterday, letting him eat dinner with my dad and grandparents. Don't ask to see pictures. Don't compliment the meal, he'll know you're lying. Laugh at Gramp's jokes. Endure Gram's stories. Only smile if you mean it. Dad's got a built in lie detector. My grandparents loved him, sure enough. Dad more or less. Very few people have ever not liked Alex. He was easy to like, easier to love.

A podcast played on the way there, some woman who talked people from all walks of life through kitchen crises. The exploding cookie batter hit a bit too close to home, but fortunately that day held a concentrated focus on a French man attempting to bake a Lasagna for some distant relative, family drama sprinkled in for viewership. Too soon, I squeezed Alex's hand as he pulled into his parent's driveway.

"Ready?" he said.

I couldn't tell if I was nodding, or shaking my head, or staring at a smudge where a poor fly had met a harsh fate on the windshield. Alex finally squeezed back.

"Hey, they're going to love you, okay? They love everybody."

Sounds familiar. "No warnings for me? Seems like you should return the favor."

He laughed. "No lists. I promise."

"You're sure? I feel like I wrote you a saga yesterday."

"You've got nothing to worry about."

Odd. No inevitable shapeal of instructions, what to expect, who takes hugs, who takes handshakes. The conversation taboos, quirks to anticipate. Instead he smiled and pushed my car door open. I couldn't focus on his house. Or him, the fact that for once his mud-brown hair wasn't concealed in a baseball cap, worn because of his convinced fear he was going bald. (So stupid. His dark hair was thin, not disintegrated.) A dress on my own body for the occasion, a green one from Valerie to "bring out my eyes". A number at the front of their bricked driveway. My contact lenses were drying.