Ice Cold

02

Landon Reilly

The color of the leaves had already started changing drastically since the end of summer. Autumn was always my favorite season, the changing colors around me feeling like a new beginning.

I wasn't used to anyone being happy to see me, but Micah had a wide grin on his face when I stepped off the train in front of him.

"How was the train ride?" he asked, bumping my shoulder as he came to stand next to me. "You didn't get into any trouble, did you?"

I lightly shoved him away from me, putting some space between us.

"It was fine, no, I didn't get in any trouble," I mumbled back, readjusting my bag on my shoulder.

"Well you weren't texting me back so I had no idea if you even made it on the train," Micah replied, his tone slightly clipped yet still light.

He had this passive aggressive nature about him. He never blew up at me, but he had a way of making sure I was aware when I was testing his patience, which seemed to be all the time.

"My phone died," I told him in a bored tone as Micah led me toward the campus.

"Well, you should keep it charged," he said. "What if something happened? You would need some way to contact someone."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, Dad."

"Maybe I'm acting like a Dad, but I'm right," Micah replied. At least he seemed to care about my well-being more than my actual Dad.

As Micah and I walked through campus, nearly everyone around us greeted him. We were only two weeks into school, yet Micah seemed to know the whole campus. It was like that for him in high school too. He was one of those people that no one had a bad thing to say about. Everyone knew him, everyone liked him.

Of course, that was until our hockey team became divided our senior year and half the guys on the team ended up hating him. Somehow the two of us started on opposite sides and ended up in the same place.

"So we got invited to a little get together tonight," Micah told me as he waved to another person. "Not a party, just a few of us. We don't have to go if you don't want to, but I think we should."

"I don't care, Micah."

"Also, my dad wants you to call him at some point," Micah said. "It doesn't have to be now, but sometime this weekend. He doesn't want to bother you, but he wants to hear from you."

"But you have no problem bothering me?" I asked.

Micah shrugged. "Not at all."

"I'll probably go home next weekend to try to see my sister," I said, rolling my eyes.

"My parents will be happy if you go home."

It was still strange talking about home as the Hanson's house. I had only lived at their house for a few months before going off to college, but it still felt more like home than the house I grew up in ever did.

I guessed that was part of why I felt the need to go back there. Not only did I want to go back to see my sister, but I wanted to go back into the Hanson's house and have that feeling of home again.

Micah looked over at me and must have noticed a difference in the way I was walking.

"Is something wrong with your leg?" he asked.

"Some asshole knocked me over on my run this morning," I told him. "It's fine."

"Maybe you should get it checked out," he said. "Before hockey season starts and it becomes a problem."