My Neighbor, Mr. Rogers

Chapter Twenty-Two - Interro-what?

It's another week before James talks to me. Most likely sensing some tension between us, Steve asked me to keep James company again, this time under the thinly veiled cover of us getting to know each other better. I'm not sure if he was expecting us to play Go Fish or something, but here we are, in his apartment, sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. Again, all I can hear is my own breathing and it makes me wonder if James is like a bug and just absorbs oxygen through his exoskeleton. I've no idea how he can be so quiet.

This silence gives me too much time to think.

It's all very exciting.

Have I ever mentioned that I don't do well in awkward silences? No? Well, I don't, which is odd considering that I have social anxiety. But the need to break the silence is like that feeling you get when you're really high up and you look over the edge of whatever you're standing on and get that little niggling in the back of your mind that wonders what it'd be like to just step off. Thankfully, making an idiotic spectacle of myself isn't going to leave me squished on the pavement. Well, most likely. I am alone with an assassin, after all.

"Interrobang," I say casually. Great icebreaker, that.

"Excuse me?" James looks to me in confusion after a pause.

"Interrobang. It's my favorite punctuation mark. It's a combination of a question mark and an exclamation point. You'd use it to ask an excited question or to express disbelief. Like, 'Steve's never had Dippin' Dots?!' I like it because it looks sharp and its name is just, I don't know, snappy."

"You have a favorite punctuation mark?" he asks flatly.

"You don't?"

He's quiet for a long while and I don't think he'll answer, I know I wouldn't if I were a normal person, but he does. "The semi-colon, I guess."

I turn my head slightly to look at him. He's completely serious and I don't have to ask why he chose that. What's before the semi-colon is complete, but there's still something to come. It leaves something in the past while looking to the future, but what's in the future couldn't be without what was in the past.

Then again, maybe he's just teasing.

I nod in approval, hoping he isn't messing with me. "Solid choice. A classic. A twofer, really – comma and a period. Yup." I hold far too long on the 'u' in that 'yup'.

'Guys, I'm really good at casual conversation. No, really. I'm thinking of going professional, maybe even entering in Nationals.'

"So do you hate me?"

'Observe, for I am the master of the subtle topic shift.'

"I mean, do you see me as some sort of threat? Or did I just make you uncomfortable? You can't have seen me as a threat... I mean-" I gesture to myself. He remains silent. "But I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I'm not very good at talking to others so for some reason I feel like if I just keep spitting words out, eventually I'll stumble on the right combination and it'll make whatever came before it make sense – like monkeys on typewriters. You probably have no idea what that's in reference to. I'm sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable again?"

He gives me a look like he's waiting for me to be quiet. I clamp my lips together. "You gave me some things to think about."

I nod, keeping my mouth shut.

"Mostly wondering about how you see so much," he finishes.

"I'd like to think I 'observe'. A bit like Sherlock Holmes. Vaguely." I smile. "Very vaguely."