Play for Keeps.

Chapter VII.

~ L o u i s ~

I walk outside with him, and he still looks unsure of me. I'm not that bad. I walk beside him down the steps, my usual sitting spot.
He stays a good little distance away, but I let it go.

"So why weren't you at school today?"
He just kind of looks at me.
"Dude, c'mon. I'm not gonna hit you."

He looks at me. He almost looks shocked by what I say. Well. I'm not.
With hard eyes, he stares at me for a minute. Then he just looks back at the ground. We walk silently, space still between us.

"I was sick." He says silently.
He actually talks?
"Sick?"
"Yeah."
"What kind?"
"What do you mean?"
A full sentence. Good job.
"What kind of sick?"
"Throwing up?"
"Yeah."

I look over at him, and he seems to want to drop the the subject. So I do.
"Okay."

When I say that, I look him in the eyes. My 'okay' turns his face a shade of pink, and he quickly looks down. Why'd he do that?
We walk silently down the streets to his house. He slowly gets closer to me as we walk like he's not so scared of me.

"So how do you know where I live?"
"You sit up in that tree everyday after school."
"How do you know that?"
His face creases when he asks. It's almost like he shrinks himself so much that he doesn't get any real touch to life. This conversation is his only life form he's really experienced.
"On my way home, I always see you up there."
"Oh."
"Yeah."

I walk him to his front porch and drop him off.
"Thanks, I guess."
"Sure thing. See you tomorrow."