One For The Road

Chapter Twenty Three

About five weeks passed, and school was going without a hitch.

Haha. Without a hitch. That was a lie.

Sure, at least not everything was spiraling into the abyss at this point. Just and I got a good score on our F451 presentation, and people eventually stopped asking us about where we'd been for the week. But we were still getting jeers from Jacob about me being gay and all of my friends being the absolute worst beings on the planet, and now Gabby was giving me weird looks at lunch when other people weren't looking, and my mom was working more hours than she already had been, and spring break would be arriving in about two weeks so all of my classmates were getting reckless, and the amount of homework I was getting was steadily increasing while the amount of sleep I got decreased, and—

And occasionally something happy would happen. Something nice to break up the bad, something to say hey, not everything has gone to the pits.

One day Heidi would laugh so hard that milk would come out of her nose, and we would all laugh, feeling awful about it but doing it nonetheless because she would be laughing too.

The next day, someone would say something funny and Just would let out the biggest, bubbliest laugh that made my toes curl for reasons I couldn't explain.

And the next day, Kaleb would come home with a craft he'd made for me at school.

Later yet, Just would come home with me to study and we'd end up watching movies on the couch and throwing popcorn at each other.

I don't know. Yeah, it wasn't all bad, but I was ready for spring break. School was stressing me out.

On Saturday, I woke up around ten in the morning. That was pretty late for me. I groggily reached around my nightstand, trying to find my phone without actually turning my body. Eventually I found it and grabbed it. I had several texts from Heidi and Just, asking me to come ice skating with them at the local recreational center. I groggily told them I'd be there, deciding I could bring Kaleb along if he wanted to. I told them I'd meet them there at 11:00 and hopped up to eat something.

I headed down the hall and to the kitchen where Kaleb was already awake, scribbling on some sort of notepad.

"Whatcha working on?" I asked him, grabbing the nearest box of cereal— I wrinkled my nose when I saw that I'd grabbed Frosted Flakes but couldn't be bothered to swap it out with another type— and a bowl.

"I'm drawing," he chirped, continuing his scribbles. I poured some cereal into the bowl and opened the fridge to grab the milk.

"Oh yeah?" I smiled. "What're you drawing?"

"It's a secret." He shot me a playful smile. I sighed dramatically as I poured my milk and put the carton back in the fridge. I couldn't bring myself to actually walk to the table, so I just stood and ate at the island in the kitchen.

"I'm going ice skating with my friends today," I told my brother. "Do you wanna come with me?"

"Who are your friends?" He set his pencil down and looked at me.

"Only Just and Heidi are coming. I don't think you've met Heidi yet. She's sweet. I think you'll like her a lot." That much was true. They had such similar natures that it was hard to believe they wouldn't get along.

"Okay!" Kaleb said after a moment of thinking. "I'll go."

"Alright. We're leaving for the rec center in 45 minutes, so get what you need to get done and we'll go around 10:45." I continued shoveling Frosted Flakes into my mouth. I was hungrier than I'd thought I was.

"Can I call my friend Camilla and ask if she can come too?" Kaleb asked. I quirked my eyebrow. I'd never heard of Camilla before. But I frowned.

"Not today. I think even bringing me with you might be stretching it. We don't have the money to bring more people with us. Maybe some other time you can bring Camilla." I really need a job. Urgently. I was starting to feel way too guilty about my mom working almost all hours of the day to keep a roof over our heads while I sat around and did nothing. A job would help me support my mother and Kaleb, and it would give me something to do after school and on weekends. I'd been thinking about finding a job a lot since Mom had started working extra hours. There were a few small shops in town that were looking for employees. I always kept that in the back of my mind for later.

His face fell. "Okay. Maybe another time," he agreed.

"Sorry, bud." I ate my last spoonful of Frosted Flakes and tipped the bowl back to drink the milk, too. With that, I set my bowl in the sink and headed upstairs to get ready.

I really could have waited a little longer to start preparing to leave since I had forty five minutes to just get dressed and brush my teeth, but at least I wasn't sitting on the couch watching TV and constantly thinking that if I stopped too late, I would probably be late getting to the rink, even though it was literally a fifteen-minute drive.

I did what I needed to do to get ready, grabbing a spare jacket for Kaleb since I knew he'd need one before plopping myself down in front of the TV and turning it on to watch for a while.

•••

When I entered the ice rink, I didn't expect to see what I saw.

I paid for skates for Kaleb and I before heading to the rink. I helped put his skates on before lacing my own up. We entered the rink together, and I spotted Heidi and Just on the other side, talking. They hadn't seen us yet, so I thought it would be fun to sneak up on them. I took Kaleb's hand since he hadn't skated many times and was still a little uncertain. Together, we began making our way around the rink.

And that's when it happened.

I nearly fell flat on my face when I saw Heidi pull Just down by the collar and kiss him.

What? What what what what?

I tried to keep up my pace with Kaleb as the two pulled away from each other, looking around them quickly, as if checking to see if anyone they knew had seen them. My mind was whirring now. During our trip when Just had asked me if I had feelings for Heidi, he seemed totally nonchalant about it, not like he'd been scoping me out and making sure I wasn't a threat to his future relationship. The two of them seemed like really good friends, but I didn't know they liked each other like that. Plus, didn't Just tell me he was gay? Why would he lie about something like that? And why was my stomach churning at the thought of the kiss they'd just shared?

It took a while for Kaleb and I go catch up to the two of them, but when we did, I tried to act as natural as possible. I gave up on trying to scare them, waving at them when they turned back and saw me. They waved back and stood in place to wait for me.

We all started skating again when Kaleb and I had caught up, saying hello and introducing Heidi and Kaleb. After that, there was a long beat of awkward silence, and I decided to break it.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked as if I hadn't just watched them kiss from across the ice rink. "You seem pretty tense."

"We're fine," Heidi said evenly, waving a hand nonchalantly as we continued forward. "We just had a little setback that won't be a big deal later." Just nodded in agreement, and I shrugged. So they wouldn't actually tell me about what had just happened. Sure, they would probably (and hopefully) tell me about it eventually anyway, but all that was going through my brain st that moment was confusion and that awful, unexplainable, uncalled for bubbling in my stomach, a wave of strangeness that flooded over me every time I looked at Just. This had never happened before, at least not in front of me.

Later, I was sure they would have some explaining to do.