Excerpt: Spinning in Straight Lines

I lean back till I’m spread out against the concrete stoop, watching bugs pelt against the light above me and listening to the gentle plink of their relentless plight.

“If you do that too long, your retinas will burn out. I knew a guy who had that happen to him once, only it was because he was looking at the sun all the time and when he wasn’t looking at the sun, he was inches from the TV, and when he wasn’t watching TV, he was just…” I sit up to glare at the source of the sudden noise that managed to break the sweet silence surrounding me. Brinley stands fidgeting in front of me, hands behind his back. “I was just kidding…”

“Lying,” I correct and lay back into the welcome mat, covering it up so it doesn’t give him an excuse to think I want him inside.

He clears his throat and I feel him sit beside me, his heat on my leg, his hand on the top of my foot. “Yeah, well… I guess so if we’re being technical. Are we being technical?”

Rolling onto my side, my hands come up to cover my ears. “What the hell do you want from me, Brinley? This is my house. You’ve hit an all time low; you’re acting like a stalker.”

“Farah said I could come over.” His hand travels from my foot to my shin and I attempt to jerk away from him. From heat. From the claustrophobia covering my body, but his fingers chase me, falling on my leg once again, a replay of being with Ant in the parking lot the other day. “Maybe I was here to see her. Is she here?”

“You’re lying again.”

“I guess. Hey, well, if I’m here for you…” My thigh is filled with heat as his hand travels upward but I shove it away. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want him to talk to me. I don’t want to look at him or feel him. I just want him to leave me alone. “Here.” He grabs my hand, turns it palm up, and places something in it. I sigh and look down to see a ragged bouquet tied together with a rubber band resting in the palm of my hand.

I sit up and stare at it, stems bent and petals wilted against my skin. “What is this?”

“Well… It’s supposed to be a bouquet, but I accidentally squished some of them because this old hag caught me taking them from her yard, and I could’ve lied just now and told you that I spent tons of money buying them, but I told the truth. Isn’t that good that I told the truth?”

“Thanks,” I mumble. I’m not sure what else to say. No one has ever brought me flowers before. Bought or stolen, fresh or faded and wilted, they’ve never been given to me before now.

He nods and scoots closer to me, drawing his knees up against his chest and looking up to stare at the bugs and the light before sighing and lowering his gaze to the street as a car slowly rolls by. “It’s an apology gift. I didn’t know what to do or say, but Will told me that flowers almost always work to get a point across. So…are you still mad?”

I set the flowers down beside me and nod my head. “Yeah.”