Authors: Leighann Kopans
Tags: #Contemporary, #romance, #young adult, #Contemporary Romance
Solving for Ex (32 page)
I shut the door to room eleven and stretch out on the bed. This mattress sucks, and it’s going to be a long, sleepless summer with it. Fortunately for Terrence, he has somewhere else to go. He can crash at his cousin’s house all summer and show up for practices. The staff will never know the difference.
“Damn,” Terrence mumbles. “This ain’t gonna cut it all summer.”
“You’re reading my mind,” I say, tossing on the bed in hopes that I can break this mattress in before the end of camp.
“I hate to say it, McCoy, but I may be bailing on you,” he says. “I’m too tall to sleep on this thing, and I’m too young to have a bad back just yet.”
I don’t even blame him when he repacks his stuff to head to Demetrice’s house. He jots down his cousin’s cell number in case I need it and says he’ll check in with me before practice tomorrow. Then he’s gone.
But I’ll be here with a stone mattress and a Michael Jordan poster. The words “Don’t be afraid to fly” are printed in bold white letters under him. Sorry, MJ, but I’m not flying. Flying results in falling, and I’ll be damned if I fall from the sky. This summer, I’m staying planted on solid ground.
Hours later, the mattress still sucks. Guys down the hallway blast rap music, and someone says something about Corona and the river. I don’t think they realize I’m even in here. The interrogation room vibe still lingers in the dorm room. I flip over on the bed and bury my face into the pillow to avoid the fluorescent torture. It’s only six o’clock. And I’m starving.
I force myself to get up and head to the Dunson Hills cafeteria, but the food is equally as awful as the food in a school’s cafeteria back home. I could force feed myself dried out chicken and attempt to blend with the baseball players, but I’m not that desperate. The barbeque place in the food court was calling out to me earlier at the mall. I’ll be damned if I’m that guy who sits around camp all summer.
Going to the mall alone isn’t much better, though. I find a corner table near the arcade and sit down. I really hate eating alone, especially in public. People stare at me anyway, but I’d rather them stare because I’m doing something out of the norm, like praying for airplanes, than have them think I have to eat alone because I have no friends. At least that’s what I think about people when I see them eating alone.
“What’s up, Jump Shot?” Carousel Guy sits down across from me.
Does he fucking live here? I didn’t want to be the lone loser at camp, but I really don’t want to deal with this guy. He must be desperate for friends. I probably look as desperate as he feels.
“That’s not my name,” I say, tucking my barbeque into the corner of my mouth to speak.
“I figured that much,” he says. “You never bothered to tell me your name.”
“Ridge. McCoy,” I say.
He nods. “I’m Micah. Youngblood.”
I was expecting something cooler. Like Blackfeather. Or Wolfcry. Something more Native American than Youngblood.
“Cool,” I say. “So what’s there to do around here?”
“There’s the river, skinny dipping, beer. That’s what most of you guys do anyway, right?” he says.
“Most of us.” But I’m not most of us. I’d rather slay zombies on Xbox or shoot hoops or drive off a cliff and put myself out of my misery.
He blabs on about how nothing ever happens in Bear Creek, except for the time some rock band’s bus broke down in the mall’s parking lot, and they had to stay here for a week. Then he says something about a festival that comes every summer and new movie releases.
Basketball doesn’t seem like his thing. Sports in general don’t seem like his thing. He accepts little silver tokens from excited kids who can’t wait for a two-minute ride on a painted horse. Why in the hell is he even talking to me? I don’t really care to be alone in my dorm room for two and a half months while my teammates get drunk, but now I can’t even hide at the mall because the guy who runs the carousel seems to think we’re friends.
He waves his hand in front of me.
“Yes? No?” he asks.
“What?” I wonder if he realizes how spaced out I was.
“I asked if you ever found any shoes,” he says.
“Oh. Yeah, I did,” I say in between the last bites of my barbeque sandwich. I motion underneath the table. “Thanks for your help.”
Fifteen minutes later, I regret my decision to follow him back over to the carousel. If he hadn’t been talking about Xbox games, I wouldn’t have. I feel like an idiot for getting sucked into a conversation. Now I can’t get away from the guy.
“Uncle Micah!”
The words echo against the high ceiling of the mall. Two little girls run toward us with their arms wide open and big smiles across their faces. One girl is about two or three inches taller than the other, and she gets to the token booth first. They both ram their wrinkled one-dollar bills into the two token slots, like a race to see who can get a coin first.
The clink of a coin against metal sounds twice. Micah laughs at them, watching them scramble against each other trying to get to the gate. Micah’s hand purposely covers the lock.
“Sorry, ladies, but I’m closed,” he says.
The taller girl folds her arms across her chest and glares at him, but the shorter one looks like she’s about to cry.
“I’m kidding, Abby. You know I’ll let you guys ride,” he says.
He unlocks the gate, and they rush inside, giggling with girly excitement that instantly turns into a screaming argument. They stand on opposite sides of a horse with yellow flowers on it.
“I was here first!” the short girl yells.
“Nuh-huh! I was!” the taller one counters.
Both girls cling to the horse. Micah runs over to play referee. He talks with his hands, pointing to the horse with yellow flowers, to the rest of the carousel, then back to the horse. This is probably my best chance to run like the baller that I am and give these new Nikes a work out. I should run. I should bail right this very second.
But I know that if I do, I’ll never be able to show my face in this mall again. The arcade and movie theatre may be the only forms of entertainment I have all summer, so I can’t make a scene. Micah would find me anyway. I’d been here a total of three minutes before he found me tonight.
The taller girl stomps away and climbs on top of a horse with pink roses while Micah helps the shorter girl on to the one with yellow flowers. He glances over, makes sure they’re both buckled, and starts the ride.
“Sorry about that,” he says as he slides back into the token booth. “They’re my nieces. Twins, double the disaster.”
I nod, having already made that assumption. I could’ve guessed they were related even if they hadn’t called him Uncle Micah. They have his tan skin.
“Abby’s the smaller one. And Jade is the other. They’re five. They always fight over who rides which one,” he explains.
“They’re just horses,” I say.
If Jordan and I were close in age, I could see him making a scene like that. Hell, he makes a scene over everything, and we’re a decade apart in age.
Micah shakes his head. “No, they’re so much more than just horses. You see those on the outside? There’s ten of them. They were specially designed just for this carousel.”
I don’t question his knowledge. The horses spin around, and I take notice of their designs. The yellow flowers. The pink roses. The one with the two fish. The one with the wild mohawk. There’s even one with an Indian’s head painted on the side of the saddle.
“And they all relate back to my tribe, my life. I’m connected to every one of those ten horses in some way,” he says.
He pulls back on the lever, and the carousel slows to a stop. The two girls climb off of their horses and switch places before Micah starts it up again.
“So what do they mean?” I ask.
He leans his head back against the wall of the token booth.
“You really think I can explain all of that to you in a few minutes?” he asks.
I glance at my cell phone. Curfew is in two hours. “I have time,” I say.
He laughs and shakes his head. “I need more time than what you have tonight. It’d seriously take all day just to tell you about one horse, much less ten. You know, I could just show you instead,” he says.
“What are you suggesting?” I ask.
“Give me ten days this summer,” he says.
“I don’t know if I can. It’s going to be a busy summer,” I say.
Really, I just don’t know if I can handle Micah for ten days of the summer. He talks too damn much, and I don’t want him latching on to me like I’m his best friend.
He doesn’t buy my excuse. “You practice when, Monday through Friday? Do you plan on going home every weekend? Where are you from anyway?”
Yeah. Already getting on my nerves.
“Yes. Maybe. Markham,” I answer.
Weekends on campus will get boring. I don’t plan on going out with the guys at camp and getting drunk. Terrence won’t be around much. And I’m sure as hell not going home on the weekends to deal with Mom’s crying, Jordan’s complaining, and Samantha’s attempt to fake a relationship with me.
But Micah doesn’t need to know that.
“I can work my schedule around yours,” he offers. He scribbles his phone number down on the back of a mall pamphlet. “Just in case you change your mind or get bored.”
He pulls the lever again, and the horses stop spinning. The girls climb down from their mounts and run back over to us. I have to get out of here before they disappear, and he traps me with more Xbox conversation. I glance down at the mall pamphlet in my hand.
“We’ll see,” I say. “I’ve gotta head back, so I’ll see you around.”
I don’t give him a chance to persuade me any more than he’s already tried to.
Room eleven is still silent when I get back. Terrence won’t be back until morning. I don’t mind the silence, though. I’d rather be alone. When I’m alone, I don’t get fake sympathy and “it’ll get better” speeches. I don’t get asked stupid questions about how I’m holding up or if I need to talk. It’s probably written all over my face that I’m alone and need pity, even here, away from annoying brothers, grieving moms, distant girlfriends, and rainforests that eat planes. That’s probably why Micah wants to be my friend this summer. I probably sweat tragedies the way my summer teammates will sweat alcohol.
I empty my pockets and crumple up the mall pamphlet. Micah’s phone number falls from the sky and crash-lands in the metal garbage bin by the door. I flip off the light.
I’d rather be alone all summer.
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