Out on a Limb

3

Everyone seemed to isolate themselves from the others for the rest of the day. Braxton went with Dawn, I went with Lexus, and Jarvis went alone. We figured that we all needed to give him some breathing and thinking space for a while. What he said back at the cafeteria, clearly no one was expecting it from a guy like him. Any string of words that included “going to the Fence” spelled out nothing far from the conception of a much unwanted situation. He could’ve said it along with a chuckle like he always did; his sign that he didn’t mind and he didn’t care, but try as we might have to tweak it up and add light to the subject, the memory of that moment was ripe as fruit in accuracy, and rotten as eggs in composition.

Lexus and I decided to skip the shuttle, at least for that afternoon. We didn’t have a craving for wild endeavors at that time; ironically, we were to embark on one the following day.

Instead, we walked home. It would take us around an hour, and by the time we reached the Neighborhood District the sun’s glare would have already completely vanished from our view.

“Grey,” Lexus seemed to absentmindedly mutter my name while we strolled down the sidewalk as if we were in the park. She was kicking a small pebble, her right and left feet working alternatively. Kick, step. Kick, step.

Her voice startled me a little. We had been walking for around ten minutes without either of us speaking, and it was completely silent around us. I blew my jet-black hair out of my eyes and turned my neck to face her.

“Yeah?” I replied. “What’s up?” The words slipped right through my mouth before I could catch them. It was a stupid, oblivious question, because I knew fully well what was up. Alas, the question had already been asked and I couldn’t take it back.

She let out a groan and looked at me like I just slapped her. She was four inches shorter than me and was raising her heels a bit just to be level with me, but nevertheless, she could be seriously intimidating if she had to.

“Are you serious?! What do you mean, what’s up?”

“Gosh, can’t you keep your voice down? You’re gonna make the entire community deaf.”

“…Sorry. I just wanted to ask…why do you think Jarvis wants to bring us to the Fence? ‘Because I’ve been there’ wasn’t a proper answer.”

I had loads of ideas on what could’ve been Jarvis’ reason. Maybe he survived a near encounter with the Fence, or maybe he saw something out there, or maybe he really was kidding with us and pretending to be all serious to leave us all concerned and quizzical. Oh, all the possibilities…

I simply shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Uh, yeah you do. You were thinking of something.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Nevermind. If you don’t wanna talk about it right now, that’s fine.”

I didn’t say anything to affirm or negate the conclusion she’d drawn to, mainly because 1. It was possibly the best way to end the conversation, and 2. I really didn’t know if I wanted to talk about it or not; I was kind of stuck in the grey zone in that matter.

The houses were divided alphabetically, so I waved a goodbye to Lexus, leaving her to walk on her own with her pebble (which she named Todd). I wondered if Jarvis skipped the bus as well; even if he didn’t, he would have been next to the two empty seats that his friends were supposed to occupy, laughing and chatting with him as we headed into the distance. Well, I figured that the latter would be much more depressing.

The lights were still off when I opened the front door, meaning Mom and Dad were still out of the house. Their work time was way past over by now, so I figured that they were out for dinner with their working mates or something; I didn’t really bother to find out what they were doing.