Body Talks

Never

Somewhere up in Grand Forks all he sees is snow, crispy and sharp. Like a wet blanket around his head, it helps him take his mind off of it. Instead of seeing Logans huge hands, he feels his own locked in a vice from the cold. Instead of his nose, warm and soft against his cheek he focuses on his own - wet and stark read. The wind is picking up and oh my God is this bus going to get here, ever?

Jake shuffles his feet to keep warm, he's made himself a little landing in the snow out to where the bus will pick him up outside of the translucent bus-stop cubicle. His breath is creating huge clouds of smoke and it doesn't remind him of Logans when he lights up a joint. How he'll always roll the roach between his fingers to drop the ember before flicking it away.

Jakes new snowshoes turned out to be vital, he'd been hesitant about buying them at the shop back in Ohio because really, how cold could North Dakota actually get? Turns out, really fucking cold. He'd held out for about a week before trading in his sneakers for his new snowshoes. Everyone else here was wearing them anyways, so he stuck out more wearing his adidas than these furry moonboots.

His new school was 'aight, nothing to write home about, you know? The school was small, no more than 300 pupils. The desks were those old ones from the 70 with the flip up tabletop to hide your pencils and shit. The classrooms were too small and they kept having to open up the windows to let in fresh air because there was no AC which meant you sent half your class breathing in everyones elses morning breath and the second half freezing your ass off in your too tiny desk.

But it sure beat seeing Logan in the halls every day. Not that Jake didn't still see Logan in the halls everyday in this new school, in fact, he saw him everywhere he went. Just yesterday in the grocery store, Jake had been picking out avocados for his salad because school lunches here were fucking rough and he thought he'd seen him. Some dude looking at the apples on the opposite side of the produce aisle and his stomach felt like it was going to fall out of his ass. Did he follow Jake here, was he here to take him home? Was he here just to fuck with him? But as the dude turned around it didn't even look anything like Logan. The back of his head just a ghost of the mind.

It had been just about 4 months and Jake still hadn't gotten his bearings yet. He relied on the busses to take him where he needed to go, not confident enough to brave it on foot just yet. This place was so different from home, people here seemed to really know each other, or at least knew of each other. Everyone had a title and a place.

The second weekend out here he'd been invited to a party, the new kids had been feeling him out for a while before actually engaging. He'd met a few cool people, some girl named Alice and these two dudes named James and Corden. The party was at some frat house and Alice had been kind of sloppy, a lot sloppy actually. With her hands all over Jake the guys assured him that this was just the way she was with new people. It was an all-dudes school so she kind of stood out as one of the few females who hung around campus.

Jake ended up kissing her against a tree outside by the end of the night. Her face felt warm in the cold breeze, her hands icy as they snuck their way inside of his big jacket. Jake held her firmly against the tree, replacing the taste of cigarettes with strawberry lipbalm, strong hands with soft manicured fingers.

But it didn't work. Jake called her a cab to get home safe and wandered off to the nearest bus stop himself.

Some days he'd just ride the bus for hours. With his headphones in he could easily escape to wherever he wanted to go. His roomates at the boarding school were cool and all, but not really the crowd you'd wanna cry in front of, you know?

With his forehead against the window his head lulled from side to side as the bus moved through the city. Sometimes he'd catch his reflection in the glass. It shifted with the lights from the roadside lamps and morphed his face as the bus changed speed. Sometimes he'd see himself in that window, sometimes he'd see Logan.