hell of a summer

Chapter Nine

Travis Hart

Hearing Jonah blame the last ten years of hatred entirely on me was probably the funniest thing I have ever heard. I mean, was he serious? He couldn't have been, right?

Jonah was the one who started being mean to me first. And to this day, I don't know what had caused the sudden change in his behavior.

"I- I just," Jonah starts, trying to find the words. "I'm talking about when I first moved here and it was first day of second grade." He exclaims, looking at me as if I would know exactly what I did wrong that he's talking about. The only interaction Jonah and I had that day was when he mumbled something I didn't hear, so in an attempt to be nice I smiled at him and walked away. So, needless to say, I am very confused.

"What about second grade?" I ask, staring at the way he's fidgeting with his necklace. Jonah rolls his eyes and makes a tsk sound, then looks back at me.

"Norah told me that she would tell you to stick with me during recess, so I was so fucking excited to meet you because it meant I would have at least one friend here." He starts, and the idea that Jonah was once looking forward to see me, no matter how long ago, still just feels wrong.

"So, I walked up to you and asked you to play tag with me, but you just walked right fucking passed me and embarrassed me in front of all your stupid friends."

Wait what?

"Then, you gave me a mean ass fucking smile to rub it all in! How do you think I felt?" He shouts, making me stand there slightly in shock. Mean smile? I don't ever remember doing that. And I don't remember him asking to play tag with me either. I look at Jonah for a long time, and he looks back at me. He has a very unexplainable expression and I can't pin point what emotion he's feeling. Maybe anger? Sadness? Irritation? I don't know.

I don't even know what to say to this, because that is absolutely not how I remember that situation.  "You never asked me to play tag with you," I retort, all while looking at him like he's grown three heads. He instantly gets pissed off, slamming his hand against the counter. "Yes I did!" He yells, standing up straighter. 

"Uh- that's not how it happened. At least not for me, anyway." I look away from him to glance down at the floor. I've never been great at confrontation. (or conversations, actually.)

"You can't just say that's not how it happened, because it either happened that way or it didn't, and I say that it happened that way." I roll my eyes, of course, Jonah is always right. (said absolutely no one ever.) There's a nasty tone in his voice, and I wonder how often he thinks about that one, insignificant moment that happened so long ago.

I shove my hands in the pockets of my basketball shorts, and on my protein shake that's still sitting on the counter. "Okay, but that's not how it happened for me." I say, and he just shakes his head as if i'm lying.

"Then how did it happened for you? Because by the awful way you've described me to everyone these past few years, you would think I ate your puppy right in front of you or something." He replies, extremely dramatically as he leans against the side of the counter and glares daggers at me.

"Okay, um," I start, trying to remember that afternoon as I start slowly pacing around the kitchen. "I was walking with my friends and I seen you standing there, and I remember you walking up to me. Then, you said something I didn't hear, and I didn't want to embarrass you by asking you to repeat yourself so instead I just smiled and walked away." Oh, I think, when the memory suddenly starts to make sense to me. The thing that I didn't hear was him asking to play tag.

I mentally cringed at the guilt I felt for accidentally ignoring a child version of Jonah. Yet, when I look over at Jonah, the guilt disappears.

If looks could kill, then I would've been dead at least thirty times within these past ten minutes. Jonah clearly doesn't believe me, scrunching his face up and grabbing his phone to start walking upstairs while mumbling insults at me.