Walking Out of Stride

Chapter Nine

A few weeks passed, and nothing changed, because nothing ever changed in Caleb's town. He and Elijah continued to work on the semester's project, Kirelle continued to work with her parents in their attempt to find him a place to stay, the four friends went dumpster diving every Friday and Caleb spent the night at Elijah's afterward. His parents continued to ignore him, except at dinner, when they took every moment they could to criticize his appearance and his choices. His brother continued to push him around with no consequences.

Nothing ever changed, and it felt like nothing ever would.

About a month had gone by and Elijah and Caleb were in Elijah's room, working on their project, when Elijah said, "Caleb, we've never gone on a date."

Caleb looked up from the outline he was working on.

"Well, it's not really safe to be out here, and the town is so small, someone at school might see." He added quickly, "Everyone knows about me, so whatever. But I don't want to out you if you're not ready."

"We can go out on a date without being too public," Elijah said. "I want to take you somewhere nice, Caleb. I don't have much money, but maybe we can go on a picnic or something. I'm a pretty good cook. I can figure out something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I wasn't able to get into the culinary class, but I know what I'm doing."

Caleb smiled and looked back down at his outline. His ears were hot and red, but in the best way. He'd never been on a real date before. "Okay," he said. "I'd like that. Maybe on Saturday?"

"Okay. We'll go to the park behind the library."

"Are you sure you want to be that close to the school?"

"It'll be fine."

That Saturday was blue and chilly and beautiful, sunny and bright and perfect for a light hoodie and a pair of jeans. Caleb sat on the curb in front of his apartment complex's parking lot, waiting for Elijah to pick him up. He knew better than to have anyone come to his door, much less a boyfriend. Although, with his parents' insistence on misgendering him as a girl, maybe having a boyfriend would get them off his back. But he didn't want to risk it.

Caleb had only been waiting about five minutes when Elijah pulled up beside him in his mom's blue Impala. He rolled down the passenger's window as Caleb stood and called, "Hey, kid, want a bike?"

Caleb laughed and slid into the passenger's seat. "No, but I'll take some candy if you've got it."

Elijah smiled and squeezed Caleb's knee, then put his hands back on the steering wheel and started on their way to the park.

It was a much shorter car ride than bus ride, and the trip that usually would have taken Caleb about a half hour only took ten minutes. Elijah parked at the far end of the park, back at in a more private corner away from the playground and baseball diamond where few people ever went.

"We can have some privacy back here," he said as they got out of the car. He grabbed a wicker picnic basket from the backseat.

"A real picnic basket?" Caleb asked. He'd been expecting a large lunchbox or a paper bag.

"It was my mom's when she was in college. She can't get rid of anything. I thought we may as well get some use out of it."

Caleb grinned. "It's adorable," he said.

They made their way onto the grass and Elijah pulled an old bed sheet out of the basket, laying it out on the ground. "It's not much, but it'll keep the grass out of our clothes," he said.