Between the Lines

- 20 -

Braden

I’m trying to remember the structure of the matrix-matrices-matrixes-WHO FREAKIN’ CARES! I’m so confused about what’s happening here and all my brain wants to focus on is the conjugation of the word “matrix”. Something’s wrong with me.

I shake my head a bit to clear the thoughts and try to get my head around what’s going on here. The only facts I can absolutely pin down are that Kendal seemed confused about taking care of anything whatsoever with her dad, which means…I-I have no idea what it means, but it’s probably not good. And then there’s the current situation where she-well-what is it she’s doing? Saving my coffee? Sharing my coffee? Does that mean something more than just the fact that she has a caffeine problem? Why is it kind of exciting me?

Kendal’s earbuds dangle off her neck and roll slightly against the bulge of her chest. They have a hypnotic sway and I realize what it’ll look like is mesmerizing me if Kendal makes eye contact right now, so I turn my head away to look down the street for some reason.

“So-yeah-no, your dad…”

“Yeah,” she interrupts completely nonplused. “I was in before he got home. Kind of a gift from God, ya know? He didn’t know anything had happened at all, so that’s why I – well, you, and Kyle and I – are all still alive right now.” She beams at me, and I get the sincere feeling that something mighty big is missing from someone’s version of the story from last night.

“Uh huh,” I answer, and I’m momentarily struck dumb by her…like always. God, she can’t possibly know what she does to my brain. Instant oatmeal, that’s what my mind becomes when she looks at me. Instant oatmeal.

“You seem doubtful,” she says and her smile falters a bit, concern now showing through her narrowed eyes.

“No!” I retort too quickly, but I go with it. If there’s daddy issues here, I do not want to deal with them. Not my monkey, not my circus. “Sorry, I…” I drop my eyes from her so I can talk more sanely. “I can’t think when I look at you. You retard me.”

She’s quiet for a second, then answers with what I can only think of as repressed giggles in her voice.

“I retard you. Well…that … that is something no guy has ever told me.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not what would get-uh-never mind. So, um-did-did you hear from Kyle?”

KYLE!? KYLE?!? I bring up that piece of human garbage now, when she’s talking to me and smiling at me? I am an idiot. For the record, it’s Kendal’s fault.

“Kyle? Oh, yeah. He texted me. You broke his finger.”

“I kinda suspected that part.”

“I kinda figured, but just confirming said suspicion.” I can’t help but look back at her and go stupid again. She is so impossibly beautiful. “And he thinks he can’t drive because of a broken finger.”

“Serious?”

“Serious.”

“He’s like a six-year-old girl…I-I mean…”

“No,” Kendal interrupts my hasty attempt to cover up. “That’s pretty much exactly what he’s like; a selfish, self-absorbed, pity-hungry six-year-old girl.”

“Well, I’m glad we agree.”

“Me too,” she says with a glint in her eyes. At that moment, to stop my brain from turning into oatmeal again, the second bell rings through the parking lot, telling us that we have ninety seconds till we’re counted as tardy.

“Walk me in?” she asks sweetly. I pick up both our backpacks, sling one over each shoulder and begin to stride towards the building.

“So I’m excited to see what you did with our paired story,” I say, trying to get a feel for what she is leaving me with.

She stops in her tracks, coffee cup half raised to her lips, eyes wide, staring at something ahead of us in horror. I think it’s Kyle, so I turn, expecting a moose with a baseball bat to be charging me, broken finger in a cast and pointing accusingly at me. But there are only the hastily retreating backs of a few other late-comers rushing into the school.

“What?” I ask.

Kendal shifts her gaze to me, eyes still wide, coffee cup still frozen midair.

“I-I forgot it.”