hanging out

Author's Note: This one is a shortie!  Just 740 words.  

~ ~ ~

So I was at the park, around 11 that evening, with John and Angela.  They were eating their tacos and sitting on a park bench and I sat on the ground across from them, indian style.

"I don't want to get a job," I said.

"So don't," Angela said.

"But I need the money."

"Hmm."

I pressed my palm against the brick walkway.  "It's warm, the ground is warm."

"The sun bakes it all day long," said John.

I lay down and stared up at the leaves interlacing above my head, and the sky above; not perfectly black, but aglow with the city.

"If this was a movie," I said, "something would happen right now.  We'd be here, in the park, and something would happen."

They continued to eat in silence and I continued to stare up at the sky.  

Then, Angela said, "Bikes coming."  

I got up quickly, watching them go past, and said, "Well, something happened... though, in a movie, they would've like, stopped, and asked us for directions or something, but then we'd get into a deeper conversation and at the end of it our lives would be changed."

Angela laughed. "Yeah, yeah."

"You sure you're not hungry, Sam?" asked John.

"Yeah, I'm okay," I said.

They were just finishing up.

"Let's go down by the river," Angela said.

So we headed in that direction, and they found a trashcan on the way.

"Run ahead and click your heels in the air and say, 'there's no place like home,'" Angela said to John, smirking.  

"Nah," he said, so I ran forward and did it, my two feet missing by just a hair.

We laughed.

Then we were at the river, and Angela sat on the cement edge by the side.  John sat further down, pushing a stick in to see how deep the water was.

I sat beside Angela and looked down at the water, then up at the night-glow again, orange with narnia-street lights.  Someone's headlights were pointed at us.

John started talking about some common friends with Angela and I listened, looking into the water, sitting beside her.  She leaned against me, resting her head against my shoulder for a moment.

"Now I'm getting hungry," I said.

"You want to get some pizza?" Angela asked. "Or like, one of those little subs from 7-11?"

"Hmm," I said.  "Maybe Burger King."

"All right."

So I got a whooper junior and it was pretty good 'cause I was hungry but later it made my tummy feel weird.  

We went to Family Video and got some movies, one I wanted to see and one Angela had seen, and she grabbed a brochure that said, "Your career at Family Video."  I thought that was pretty sad.  

Anyway, then we took John home, and went back to Angela's house, and after we got there and everything, we saw Rick.  I'd met him the day before; when he pulled up, I'd asked "Is that the shy one?" and Angela's window was open so she put a hand to my mouth and said, "Shh!"

He was pretty shy, but also intelligent; I don't know why but I felt threatened by him, like he was testing my own intelligence.  I consider myself a bit of an intellectual, but it's not like I know a lot.  I have this one friend, Sarah, who's like a human encyclopedia, and that's so not me.  I'm clever.  I can figure things out.  But I don't have a large data base of info.  

So Rick came in and we watched a movie and the ending wasn't very good but that's always how it goes.  Then Rick left, and we went up to Angela's room and I spread out my sleeping bag on the floor.  

And that's when she and I really got to talking.  Last summer we used to talk like that so much; we used to share all the issues we were having.  Then her cell phone was broken or something and she got this job at an ice cream place and it was really tough to connect with her; I live like half-way across town from her.

So we were talking, in the dark, and I saw the orange glow outside the window turning to pink, and I knew that dawn was approaching.  

And in her room, with the fan blowing on my left ear, I felt more secure than I had in a long time.