Chapter six

6.
“Hey, Shane!” James tossed me a basketball as soon as I showed up at his house. He was there with Kyle, warming up and starting to shoot hoops. I said hi to Kyle and to James, and started dribbling the ball around. I wasn't a legend at basketball, but I was okay. Soon I found the courage to ask,
“Is Mike here yet?”
“No, he's gonna be a little late. His mom called 15 minutes ago saying that he slept in and she was just waking him up. But he should be here in a little while, knowing how he drives.” Kyle and James laughed, and I joined them half-heartedly. Now I was curious, though.
“Mike has his license?”
“For sure! He is 17, you know.”
Whoa! “No, I didn't know that. I thought he was 16, or maybe 15. But he does look 17, I guess.” I had really just thought he was big for his age. I was hanging out with a senior. It made me feel privileged.
After a few minutes, a car drove up, and it was driving fast. The black mustang screeched to a halt in the driveway, and Mike popped out of the driver's seat.
“James, Kyle! And Shane, whasup?”
We said our 'hellos' and 'whasup's' and yadda yadda yadda. Soon we were playing, full blow. First it was me and Kyle against James and Mike. Those teams were pretty evenly matched. James and I were both the small, agile ones, while Kyle and Mike were the bulk. We ended up deciding to switch the teams without on actually winning, because practically no points were being scored. Then I was matched with James, and Kyle and Mike were together. We played for hours, switching up the teams every time someone scored 10 points. Around 12:15, our stomachs were all rumbling too much to ignore, so we headed inside to eat some lunch. It was then that I realized I hadn't felt awkward at all playing basketball with them. Even when I had entered James' house, I barely even stopped to take time to remember that I was the outsider, I had never been there before but the other two guys had been multiple times.
They were accepting me, acting like we had all been best buds forever.
It was such a new feeling. Another first. I only started feeling out of place when we had finished eating one frozen pizza (cooked, of course...) and the second was cooking. That was when Mike asked why we had postponed, and James brought up the subject of me going to counseling. He meant it in a kind way, of course, but I started feeling uncomfortable.
“You had your first session today, right, Shane?” James asked. I nodded.
“Whoa,” Kyle injected, “Counseling. That's pretty serious, huh man. At least it's better than being class president... I guess.”
“Yeah it was really weird,” I managed to get out.
“I've met that dude, Mr. Quirk? He's really out there. What kind of stuff did he ask you?” That was Mike.
“Oh, lots of stuff. About me and my family, my friends. School. At first I didn't really know what to say, but I just started talking about stupid random stuff and he seemed to like it.”
Kyle snorted. “Did you talk about your 'relationships with girls'? Shrinks eat that stuff up.”
I squirmed in my seat. I don't know if James noticed my expression or was just curious, but he saved me by asking a question.
“How would you know?”
That initiated a whole new conversation, and I even joined in, laughing with the rest of them. My awkward moment was over, and I was glad.
We went out to shoot some more hoops and ended up playing for several more hours. Then we went inside, helped ourselves to some more snacks, and invaded James' game room. He had Wii, Xbox, Gamecube, you name it. When we were finished playing video game after video game, finally we dispersed. Kyle had a date, and James needed to finish homework. I didn't have anything, but if the rest of them were leaving, so was I. To my surprise, Mike offered me a ride home. I gladly accepted.
The ride home was relatively quiet. That is, there wasn't much talking, just blaring rock music. I did admit that Mike had a great car stereo, though.
When he pulled up to my house, I wasn't planning to invite to invite him in, so I didn't. He invited himself in.
We went in, and I stopped myself from my usual habit of yelling “Mom! I'm home!”. Instead I just took my shoes off, and offered Mike a drink.
“Sure! You got any Pepsi?”
“I think so... if you don't mind diet.”
He made a face.
“Sorry,” I heard myself apologizing, “My mom.” He nodded like that explained everything. I guess his mom might be the same way.
We stood in the kitchen, sipping juice and making small talk. The words flowed a lot slower without the other two guys around, but we still kept up a stream of conversation. We even laughed a few times. Then I heard footsteps coming our way, and a voice.
“Shane? Is that you?”
“Yeah Mom, in the kitchen.” She entered the room, first a neutral look on her face, and then when she saw Mike, her eyes brightened up and a smile appeared, wide and shining.
She asked in her company voice, “Oh, who's this?”
“Mom, this is Mike. Mike, my mom.”
“Hello, nice to meet you.” Her smile widened as she went over and shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Baskett,” he said, and I was surprised that he even stood up straighter and gave her hand a firm shake. Then Mom turned to me.
“Shane, someone called when you were away. It was a girl, she said her name is Sophia Markson, and she said that you stood her up today.”
I felt my face getting red hot. The color of my cheeks probably matched the feeling in them, also. I murmured a thanks to mom, and she left, but obviously wanting to hang around longer. I avoided Mike's gaze, and when I couldn't think of anything else to do, left the kitchen and went outside to the front yard. He followed me, of course.
Mike was chuckling. “Well, Shane, I barely know you, but I didn't think you were the kind of guy who would stand a poor girl up. Especially one like Sophia. I've seen her around, she's pretty cute. For a sophomore.”
I frowned, but decided to face Mike head on. It wasn't such a good idea, since I wasn't used to looking people in the face especially in tender situations. But it was good practice. I forced myself to look him right in the eyes.
“It's not how it sounds, Mike.”
“Really?” he raised his eyebrows, “Hmm. Well I guess I believe you, especially since James said you weren't the type to be dating, anyway. Then what's the real deal?”
I wasn't exactly happy that James had been telling Mike I wasn't one for dating, but it was true, and I assumed that James meant it in the best interest. So I just dismissed it and answered his question.
“Sophia wanted to meet me to talk about something – I don't know what. But she asked to meet at noon, and I was with you guys, so I couldn't meet her. And I...” I bent the truth a little there. “...I didn't call her to tell her, I guess maybe I forgot.”
He seemed to believe me, but still, he said, “Maybe you forgot? Or maybe... you were too chicken to call a girl, huh?”
If for some reason seniors could read people's thoughts, I couldn't wait to be in the 12th grade. Because that was exactly what Mike had done at that moment. He saw right through me and my silly little excuse for not calling Sophia. But he just smiled and slapped me on the back, not waiting for an answer, and climbed into his car and drove away. I stood in the lawn for a few minutes, dumbfounded. Mom came to the door and called me, though, so I went inside, but I turned down dinner. My appetite had completely left me. I walked to the computer room, played a game for a couple hours, but then that turned boring also. I checked my email, and nothing was there worth reading. A few forwards, the kind of email survey that people did whenever they were extremely bored were there from my cousin Jess, so I filled those out and sent them back to her, plus to R, and also to James, just for good measure. I knew R would delete them, since he didn't “believe in silly forward quizzes” but I figured my cousin would read them, and James might at least skim through at least one of them.
It wasn't until I found myself cleaning the kitchen counter and loading the dishwasher voluntarily that I realized what I had subconsciously been doing. I was avoiding having to call Sophia. I knew that I would have to sooner or later, so I was pushing it off until later. I was considering calling and leaving a message, since I could just hang up if anybody answered, when my mother entered the room. She was thrilled, but very surprised to see me doing chores without being asked, let alone being TOLD.
“Shane!” she exclaimed after she walked in and noticed what I was doing, “I'm so proud of you! Your father or I didn't even have to ask. You're such a good son. Here, let me help you.” I stepped aside and let her grab some more dirty dishes to load in, and then thought of something I should have asked much earlier.
“Hey Mom, when Sophia called, did she say anything else?”
My mom seemed flustered for a minute, I don't know why, but then she calmed and answered me, saying, “Oh, yes. She said not to bother calling back, and she'll see you at school.”
I practically breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't have to call her. She didn't care. I was so glad, I actually gave my mom a spontaneous hug, but then felt embarrassed and retreated back to my room, since the chore was finished anyway.
Entering my bedroom, I plopped down on the bed, and chuckled to myself, but thankfully it didn't turn into a laugh-fest like the night before. Thinking back to that, I felt rather ashamed, and was extremely glad that nobody had been there to witness it.
That would have been bad.
Then I thought back through the events of the day. So many new things seemed to be happening all at once, like some switch had been flipped by accident and was causing everything to all run together at once like a sentence without any commas or periods and all the stuff was flowing together and together and I guessed that maybe someday it would all come together in a great big mess and all come crashing down on me.
But for the moment, it was okay.