Above Water ✔️

16 - confession hour i

"Are you ever gonna explain why they call you Meek?"

We had been sitting out here for about a half an hour. I resorted to building a miniature sandcastle–Kingdom de Tomás–and just enjoying the weather. I was probably being bitten by sand fleas and sharks a mile away could probably smell my sweat, but I was fine. Everything was fine. Too fine.

I shrugged. "It's dumb and kind of embarrassing."

Dallas nudged my knee with his as he dug out a section of the hole we were working out of outside of the castle. "Tell me."

"Fine," I said, patting the top of a building. "So there was a corner store on Erick's street growing up that we would go to literally every day. After school, during the summer, it didn't matter. We would find some quarters and get an Icee and those little twenty-five cent taffies, you know what I'm talking about?"

He mmhm'd in confirmation.

"So it was owned by this Romanian man named Petre and he worked, like, every day with his wife, so he knew us pretty well. He knew Erick and I since we were practically toddlers and then once we started bringing Carlos and Chris around, he knew them too."

Dallas chuckled. "I have no idea where this is going."

"I told you it's dumb," I said with an eye roll. "So I've always been shorter than my friends. Like, literally, always. Just smaller and skinnier since the day I was born. Even at birth, Erick was three pounds bigger. Petre, the son of a bitch, every time he saw me, he would yell, 'Ah! Baiat mic!' and we had no idea what he was saying, right? He wouldn't say it to any of the other guys, just me. So I fucking Googled it and he was calling me 'small boy' my whole life."

I heard a laugh from beside me and I glared at him until he stopped. "He got you good," Dallas said, still chuckling.

"Fuck off," I muttered. "So when I told the boys, naturally they also thought it was hilarious so the nickname stuck."

"Now I kinda wanna call you Meek," he said. "Suits you more than Thomas, small boy."

I shoved him and he fell back into the sand, laughing loudly into the night. No one was around to hear it, which was a shame. He had a nice laugh, cheery and bright and could light up the beach if it were possible.

"You're the only one who calls me by my name other than my mom," I said after he calmed down. "I like it."

He didn't say anything to that, which made me feel like I fucked up and said something too homosexual for whatever we had going on. I just laid back and tried to ignore the sand that was invading my scalp.

The night sky above us was so vast and overwhelming that I was rendered breathless. I stared up at the endless amounts of stars and constellations over our heads and felt so small. So insignificant. I couldn't imagine Dallas ever feeling that way. He must have had such an impact on so many people's lives just with his presence. I didn't have the slightest clue how, it was just a hunch. He was sort of magnetic.

"So why law school?" I asked.

Dallas blew a raspberry and adjusted so our arms were near touching. I could almost feel the tickle of the sleeve of his hoodie on my bare arm. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you," he said and I snorted. "It's, uh, sort of a long story."

"You dragged me out to the beach for the first time in almost twenty years," I deadpanned. "I'll be here for a minute."

He put an arm behind his head and turned to look at me. I watched him lick his lips, the saliva glistening under the moonlight, and he stared directly into my eyes. Whatever he was about to say, he was leading up to it. There was depth to what was about to be shared with me.