Rigamarole: Section 3: Confluence
I know he’s not interested in talking, but turning the radio on would still feel like telling him to shut up.
I could think of a thousand things to say if left to my own devices - but my body has felt like one big system error for the last five years.
I have a thousand things I want to say and I don’t feel like saying any of them, staring at the back of his curly head as he studies his scrawny arm resting on the windowsill, with something like stubborn pride that unsettles me.
“How do you calculate the length of the hypotenuse?” I blurt brusquely, like it’s a dare.
“I don’t need you to quiz me, Lady Licorice,” He doesn’t turn his gaze from his arm, rolling down his sleeve until it hides his bloodless hands.
“Excuse me for trying to keep you out of summer school,” I sniff with more than genuine vehemence. “Remind me who got a ‘D’ on their last test?”
“I didn’t study for that one. I studied for this one,” he says in an exasperated monotone, crossing his arms over his chest - leaning forward against the seat belt like he’s a ragdoll just barely being kept upright.
I purse my lips at that, but he can’t see me, my eyebrows furrowing into a migraine. I try to push it back with one hand, keeping the other on the steering wheel.
I shouldn’t have left without my coffee this morning…
“Don’t want to go into it.”
I can barely feel my numb fingers resting on the faux leather wheel cover - watching the red light grow from a speck and bleed into color. I shift - reminding myself of the feeling of cotton on my skin. Weight. That I can feel my hair on my neck. If I stop to think about it.
“I thought we said we were going to tell each other what was going on?”
He looks over at me slowly as I stare at him, my jaw set, and his eyes dare me back.
“Is Kevin still texting you?”
“Not enough to be jealous of.”
I manage to keep my uncomfortable heartbeat from showing - but I feel cold on the outside - wondering if the only reason my heart isn’t pounding against my ribs is because it’s shrinking.
Riley glares at me rancorously.
Shifting uncomfortably against my seat belt as the car pauses at the street corner, I wriggle my phone from my jean’s pocket and toss it onto his lap with as much un-phase-ed-ness as I can muster, and turn the radio up to a murmur to drown out this feeling under my skin.
“An albino- a mosquito-!”
Riley scrolls back and forth between the two most recent texts as I glance over his shoulder.
That’s what you said last year, Kevin.
Sorry, Lei. I know. I’ve been dying to come see you again but I’ve got no time. My mom’s been on my back about grades all year like a drill sergeant because of graduation. But maybe this summer if she doesn’t make me go with her to visit her family again.
Riley looks at me in abject indignation. I just shrug a little.
“Don’t tell me you’re buying this.”
“I’m not buying anything,” I say a little too shortly, defensively. “I just let him talk. If he comes he comes. If he doesn't, who cares?
Riley looks like there’s something else he wants to say to that, but he just puts the phone on the dashboard to sunbathe in the little light eking its way through the foggy morning haze and lifts his ghost-like hand to his mouth to check his sour breath.
A thousand thoughts spiral in my brain. Shake themselves up and rearrange into new phrases - nonsense and blabber - like a bag of scrabble pieces - but-
He just scowls at me, but I scowl back, bitterly.
“After all this time, you still haven’t learned how to cover your tracks?”
