Misconstructed

Thirteen

Getting to the coffee shop, I order something other than a latte. A nice cold frappuccino. The bell sounds over the door and when I turn, I see her ready for her regular coffee. Immediately, we lock eyes with each other. I force myself to stay where I am, although I wouldn't mind going over to her to start a conversation, I don't think Rex would like that very much. He hands me my drink and I take a sip of it. Caramel's the flavor I chose, and it's the best one they have.

She walks over to us, to my surprised, and with a chipper smile. "Hi, guys. Fancy meeting you two here," her tones more sarcastic than genuine considering that I told her we would be here at this time. Did she come at this time on purpose?

Rex raises his coffee to her but I can see that he's annoyed. Not with her, how could he be upset with her when she doesn't even know what's going on? He glances at me but I already know what he's thinking. "I'm going to meet you outside," he tells me before walking past us and out the door. As the door shuts behind him, I turn my attention back to her. "So, coffee."

"Yeah, coffee." The awkwardness grows, and I know that if it grows too much between us, all my work up until now will be for nothing.

"Let's get you one," I tell her but goad her to go to the counter with me. "Regular coffee please," I tell the clerk before I take out my wallet. She puts her hand over mine, insisting that she pay but I fight her on it.

"What do you mean, it's my treat."

"I can't let you, plus, my boyfriend will kill me," he tells me, ultimately putting me in my place once more here. She laughs at her words and I guess I'm supposed to too. She reaches into her purse and grabs a small leather wallet. Not the kind you'd see at a makeup show either, more of a motorcycle shop.

"So you like motorcycles?" I ask her, taking more notice of the wallet. It's black and brown with stitches going along the outline of it. She uses her debit card, and puts it back in her wallet. The two of us go to the side, waiting for her coffee.

"Oh yes, I've always loved them. You?"

"Oh yes, what's your favorite?"

"Nope, you first." she teases, her smile wide.

"Regular coffee," the barista calls out next to us.

I hand her her coffee, letting her add what she wants. "Enduro." I admit. She's visibly excited, almost wanting to jump up and down as she stares up at me.

"That's mine too!" She almost yells. My eyes go wide with shock and I want to almost jump around as well.

"You're kidding!" I say almost too eagerly.

"Nope, I've ridden one before, they're amazing creatures."

"Oh Ms. Fits," I say before she interrupts me.

"Oh please, Janice outside of school," she informs me as she swipes the air beside me, letting me know that I've successfully reached phase two. I see a head pop up from outside the shop and it's Rex checking in on me. He comes into the shop, bell ringing over head, and as he walks up to us he says, "I'm just going to head to Trevors,"

I nod, "Alright, I'll be there soon." I tell him, letting him know he's not going to just end our conversation. He takes a moment, nodding his head before he walks out again. I knew he just wanted me to leave with him. God damn it Rex. I go back to what I was talking about, not wanting our conversation to end. It goes well, really well and it actually takes up some time to get through the conversation, leading us to sit down.

We take a booth for two and it actually feels nice to talk to someone with a common interest. Before I know it though, our conversation has lasted an hour and a half and a second coffee for both of us. I look at the time and it's almost six. I have two missed calls from Rex and a text from Dustin, all of which I ignore. "Well would you look at the time," Janice says as she looks at her phone as well.

"Sorry to keep you so long, your boyfriends probably looking for you,"

"No it's okay. All he does is play that stupid gaming console, I personally don't get it."

"I don't either," I tell her admittedly as I shrug my shoulders. I never understood video games until I met Trevor. He has plenty of games to play but none that catch my eye so I just watch the others play.

She looks at me with a sudden realization to which I can't pinpoint what but I don't ask, although I debate if I should. "So you don't play video games at all?"

"Growing up in foster care, you don't really get the option to play them, so I never really learned how nor did I care to." I tell her, feeling a bit uncomfortable about opening up to her. I never planned on opening up to her, I barely even open up to Rex, and I've known him longer than almost everyone I know.

"So you're in foster care,"

"You haven't read my file, have you?" I ask her.

"Reading my students' files isn't really my forte. I like to learn about them as I go," she tells me, winking at me as she takes another sip of her coffee. I accept her words, silently thank her as I do. The school therapist has had a hard enough time trying to get me to see him, I didn't need Ms. Fit - I mean Janice try to tell me about how to run my life too. That's one reason I barely go back to that damned home in the first place.

The two of us get up and out of our seats, getting ready to leave. "Again, I'm sorry to have kept you for so long." I tell her, not feeling the least bit sorry that I took up so much of her time. We head to the door, and I open it for her. Letting her walk out in front of me, I notice a recognizable car sitting on the street. I also notice the people inside are pretty recognizable too. Looks like they're waiting for a show. Too bad I'm not going to give them one.

Janice waves me goodbye, as I do the same to her. I tell her that I'll see her in class tomorrow and remember from our conversation that she and I are meeting up at Gary's shop so I can see her get her tattoo. As I walk to the Mustang, Dustin rolls down his window. "What the hell are you guys doing here?" I ask them. Trevor is in the passenger seat, Rex in the back. "No Allen or Roy?"

"They wanted to stay with Maddie and Danny." I roll my eyes at the sound of their names. They're the last two people I want to think about.

"We wanted to come see the show." Trevor tells me, leaning over so I can get a better view of him.

"You told them?"

"What? It's not a secret anymore." Rex shrugs his shoulders as he leans back in his seat. I could kill him right now. Nodding my head, my lip sticks out a bit. I look to where Janice was walking but she's completely gone now.

"So tell us about her" Dustin gently hits my arm with the back of his hand. "You two were talking for a while."

"Nothing," I tell him, not wanting to share the happy topics she and I talked about like motorcycles, coffee, the fact that she moved here from Texas a couple months ago for this teaching gig. How her boyfriend moved with her so they wouldn't have to break up. Blah.

I get off of the car and walk around it, getting in. I slide in right next to Rex who sits up straighter. "You're an ass." I tell him under my breath.

"What did I do?" Rex is defensive now, good.

"You didn't have to tell them where I was and what I was doing?"

"Oh come on, we wanted to go to see what was up and what was taking you so long." Dustin comes to Rex's defense as he starts the car up. Rolling up his window, we start driving down the road. "Did you have fun at least?"

I shrug my shoulders, "It was nice." And that's all the information I feel like giving them, they don't need to know anymore than that.