Pumped-Up Kicks 2

5.9 1/2

Telly (dude I missed her)
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Didn't really expect for Riley to be completely chill after he broke his hand. I sat with him afterwards in the lobby of the urgent care center. He had a cast and the lime green gauze was wrapped around his hand tightly. I looked away to the table to magazines in front of us because this was my fault. "I'm really sorry about that asshole." I said after a while, still not looking at Riley.

"I really hope you don't think that whatever he said about you was true, right?" Riley said after a while.

"Yeah. I just uh, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for this to be..." I trailed off with my apology after about the thousandth time I've said sorry. I was getting really tired of hearing the words come out of my mouth and I'm pretty sure that Riley would staple my mouth closed if he heard it one more time.

He didn't say anything after that for a long time. "When are you going to go home Telly?"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe another week and then I'll go home since, you know, school is starting again?"

He nodded his head and thought about it for a moment. "Do you think you would go to college in New York?"

"Depends on if I like it here. I uh, really do want to stay close to home though." I shrugged.

"Why?"

Because I don't want to leave Logan even though he's no good for me. "It's what I'm used to." I shrugged and he took that as the end of the conversation. Nothing was said much after that as we walked out of the urgent care clinic and was spat out on to the permanently busy streets.

After we walked a few blocks and asked for directions on how to get to the Rockefeller Plaza, Riley started talking to me again. "Mason and I are cousins."

"What?"

"Yeah. Him and I are cousins. Our moms are sisters. Him and I practically grew up together like brothers since it's just me and Rid. Mason was my best friend and we did everything together."

"So what happened?" I asked as I looked to his horribly beautiful profile, his jawline so perfectly sharp you could cut diamonds. His fair skin was dotted with light stubble, giving his face a dark glow.

"Mason and his family moved away because his father had gotten a new job opportunity. At first we talked on the phone everyday, and then he stopped calling. I would always leave him messages and he would get back to me whenever it was convenient for him. He started getting interested in playing sports during middle school, the years when he was away. Ridley and I just stayed home and hung out with our friends. Grey and I met in 7th grade, I'll never forget it. I walked to the library after school this one time to work on a paper since Ridley and I had to share a laptop and she wouldn't cough it up for anything. I was looking for a computer in the back and there's Grey with red paint in his hair. He started his art career back then, along with his bass guitar."

"Then, freshman year rolled around. That's when Mason came back a changed man. His father had died and he only has his mom and Mindy so he had to grow up and be the man of the house. How tragic. A 14 year old boy having to take over his house without the guidance of a father figure. You see, Mase used to be a real scrawny kid. When he came back, you could hardly recognize him. He was tall and buff, his hair grown out, that's where Moose came in. His voice dropped like 2 octaves and he had a major attitude problem. I was excited to see him again, and we hit it off like we always did-"