Who Knew // Christian Akridge

2

Christian

"So," Michael started, "What was that all about with the manager?" I was thrown out of my daydream and replied to his question.

"Oh that? I don't even know. She was all up on me asking all these questions about 'why are you here son?' and 'you've been here for too long, leave' . Like, how'd she know if i was or wasn't intending on buying anything? You know what I mean?" I waited for a response but I could tell Michael wasn't completely listening. I didn't really care anyway. We had made it to the bike rack and I realized it had started to rain while I was in the store. My bike seat was soaked.

"Karma," Michael declared. "cold, hard, shiny, karma." I gave him an annoyed shove to the shoulder. He laughed. I noticed Michaels bike was under the awning of the store, so his seat wasn't wet with the rain. I attempted to wipe my seat with my sleeve and pretended it didn't bother me. I sat down and kicked up my kick stand. The rain was still prominent, not a down pour, but it was definitely raining. It was generally cold too. Basically normal weather for a January in Wichita Falls. Gloomy, cloudy, rainy, and kinda of cold.

"What are you planning for today?" Michael said as he mounted his bike.

"I, I, I don't really know." I said not satisfied about the fact that my butt was wet from sitting on a soggy seat.

"Come on, you always have an idea of what to do."

"Maybe... Doug's?" I suggested. Doug's is an old diner down the seat from The Furniture Valley. Michael and I go there sometimes because they always have the largest selection of pie. Apple, banana cream, cherry, blackberry, pumpkin, lemon meringue and about twenty other favors. Not to mention my grandpa is and old friend of the owner, Doug himself, so sometimes we even get free pie.

"Sure why not, its almost dinner time anyway," Michael declared. I glanced down at my watch, 4:20 it read. I was about to make a joke about the time currently being a weed reference but as soon as I lifted my head to speak, a mini van sped by, its wheal colliding with a large muddy water puddle, causing in a result of muddy gutter water to be splashed all over me. At this point Michael had already ridden ahead of me a few feet, so he didn't see this happen, he only heard me curse loudly and turned his head back and saw.

"Oh my god," he belted out laughing. What a nice friend. "Dude, dude, dude, I'm telling you, karma," he said still giggling. I gave him a 'thank you come again' fake sarcastic smile that flight attendants give the family with the crying baby as they leave the plane.

"Shut up," I said as I shook myself and adjusted my feet on the bike pedals and started to ride. I was annoyed with the fact it was forty-four degrees out and I was now soaking wet with gross puddle water. I figured I could wash up at Doug's, knowing the owner and all. So we both were on our way. Riding down Rowan street. Not a lot of cars were on the road at this time. The whole town seemed to be in a depression, because of Christmas just ending and it being January 6th. The month of January is typically a dreary month for the whole world. Although for me its of course just so much fun to have the whole entire world to be depressed on my birth month.

"Dude what are you doing for your birthday," Michael asked as we rode, "It's coming up soon right?"

"Yeah I guess you could say January 27th is soon," (I know Christian's birthday is May 1st but in this story it's the January 27th) I replied. "To be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Sweet 16 am I right," Michael laughed on but I was only half listening and wasn't intending on conversation. The coldness of the air combined with my soaking clothes and the breeze caused by biking made it hard for me to talk my body was frigid cold. Michael didn't say anything after that and the rest of the short bike ride to Dug's was silent. I'm sure he could tell I wasn't necessarily in what you could call a good mood due to the turn of events today. By the time we had pulled up and I heard the ever so familiar sound of gravel move under my bike tires indicating the arrival of bike riding to Doug's parking lot, the frigid air, that I thought would've dried my clothes by the passing wind, only caused my sad appearance to be an annoyingly damp, numbing quality. Ugh I really just felt like going home.