Thomas and Niko in the City of Trees

Chapter 12 - Part 1

The girls come over that night. No one's touching anyone. We're all just lying in the grass looking up at the sky. We all got a little high earlier, but there wasn't much to go around and it's already wearing off. The sunset is fading to dark. Thomas's elderly neighbor still hasn't come back. Ever since his family took him away, his half of the duplex has sat silent and mostly in the dark, except for a lamp that comes on automatically in the evenings. I'm looking in through those dark windows now. The lamp lights up his living room in kind of a gloomy way. All I can see are a bunch of old books and magazines on shelves.

"How come no one calls it a spliff anymore?" Madison says to Lexie.

"They still do, as far as I know," Lexie says.

"Why don't you call it that?"

"Shit, Maddie, I don't know. I guess they call it that in Britain or something."

"Oh."

None of us is exactly dumb, but Lexie's the only one you'd go out of your way to call intelligent. Yeah, I know, we're all smart in different ways and all that bullshit, but Lexie is different. She and I will be talking about something sort of deep, and then she'll accidentally take it to a level I can't grasp. I say she does it accidentally because she's usually pretty careful about not making me feel stupid. Anyway, she's not with me for my brains. One bonus is that I don't make a habit of overthinking things. She likes that. She says it balances her out. She also likes that I'm a hard worker, and that I have a nice body. Not as nice as Thomas's, but still above average.

Madison is the dumbest, for sure. I'm not even saying she's that dumb, it's just that she doesn't think too deeply about anything. It's simply not a strength of hers. She's also easily the most kind and genuine person lying out on this lawn tonight. I'm tempted to say those two things go hand-in-hand.

"I'd move to the UK," Thomas says suddenly. "I could learn rugby."

"When?" says Madison.

"I don't know. After college."

"What would you do there?"

"Play rugby," he says.

Madison sighs. Her breathy voice is perfect for sighing. "I don't think I could ever live that far away."

"No one said you had to."

There's a pause. I realize Madison is sitting up. I'm not sure how long she's been that way.

"It would be nice," she says, "if you could at least pretend we'll still be together then. I'm tired of being the only one who thinks so." Then she stands up and walks away. She's going around the house toward the front yard.

Thomas gets up and goes after her.

"He'll make it right," I say. "She's always being so romantic about that stuff."

"She's not wrong," says Lexie.

"I know," I say. Suddenly I'm feeling nervous, and I don't know why.

"She's the normal one."

"That's true," I say. I try to laugh. "We're the ones who are strange."

"What do you mean?"

I lift my head off the grass and look at her. "I don't know. Just that we're not quite as romantic as her, that's all."

For a moment I'm worried she'll keep pressing me for whatever shitty, half-baked thought I'm trying to birth into the world. But she doesn't. She just lays her head back in the grass and stares up at the night sky.

—

I don't know what the hell Thomas says to Madison to make up for it in front of his house, but by the time Lexie and I come around to join them, they're just laughing and being all handsy and shit like that. Then they spend all day together on Sunday. They hang out every evening that week, too. Each day, Thomas waits to text me until late in the evening, after she's gone home. He doesn't say much about what they get up to, so don't ask me. I don't even want to guess. As for Lexie and me, we spend a lot of time getting baked after work, and then having a good time. Sometimes that means sex. Others it means just talking about crazy shit or taking a walk outside and looking at the scenery. It turns out to be a nice way to pass the week, if I do say so myself.