Twelve

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Today I want to go to the valley. Alone. Because, after all, I don't have any friends or any legitament person who I could bring with me or anyone who would want to go with me. 

The detention room cleared pretty quickly and before I could realize it, everyone was gone and the cigarettes were gone and Foster was gone and the girl went with him, giggling and cuddling his neck. They looked happy. So happy and sincere without looking back to see that I was still here. Alone. 

That's okay. 

I picked up my bag with my keys inside and went out the doors and to my car. Foster was there with her, drunk on love and stumbling around, fiddling with his keys behind her back as they fell onto each other and laughed joyfully. But then his face flexed - changed - reconstructed, into something different and then he wasn't looking at her anymore. He was squinting to the other side of the parking lot - to me. She soon did the same thing and made a face. Then her mouth opened and words came tumbling out of it, lots of them, but I couldn't hear it and then finally words came from his. Then their words were filling a transparent ocean between them when he threw up his arms. He threw them up and she walked away, huffing and puffing and carrying a pack of Camels. Lighting them up once she entered her vehicle, skidding away in a ball of grey smoke. 

I stood for a while and so did he, until we were the only two left in the parking lot. Then he started jogging north. I soon realized that I was north and he was jogging toward me. And then he reached me.

"I need a ride," He said, averting his eyes to his feet, "where are you headed?"

"Uh, the valley. Near Richmond. The one with -"

"Okay." He shut the door once he was inside and I stared blankly for a moment, keys in hand, trying to figure out what just happened. But he was already seated inside, tapping on the window and grinning softly, motioning for me to come. 

So I did, I sat in the car, and I drove and I didn't flinch when I looked in my rear-view and saw Foster smiling at the back of my head or when he started noticing and winked. I am proud to say I didn't move from the spot. But when we arrived, and my oxygen-starved lungs hit the air of the empty fields and realized that Foster and I were alone and looking upon wispy, purple, romantic mountains and he was wearing new cologne, I did flinch. A lot. 


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