My Funny Valentine

When he saw Ryan's figure making its way towards us, Jon's eyes widened and he was already waving his hands uselessly in the air as if to disperse the ever-present smell of pot that seemed to stain the walls of these train cars as much as the graffiti and rust-stains did.

"Jon, dude, chill," I said, "It's just this kid from my history class." I cringed internally, the description hardly did him justice, but I hardly had time to go into a long diatribe on my feelings for the mysterious boy.

His eyes remained frantic, but he calmed down considerably, positioning himself against a different spot on the wall of the car so that from the angle Ryan was at, he wouldn't be able to see him. Brendon, however, was not quite so sure he wanted to remain unseen.

Right as Ryan was passing the open door, I jumped impulsively from the car, smiling shyly despite the theatrical entrance. He heard Jon make some kind of confused noise from inside the traincar, but he paid no attention; Ryan was smiling. At him, no less. His brown eyes sparkled with surprised delight. He ran a hand through his already tousled hair and said:

“Hey stranger. I wouldn’t have pegged you as the train-travelling type.”

I laughed weakly and toyed with the hem of my shirt nervously. “I wouldn’t expect you to be travelling via railroad, either,” I said, “Did your chauffeur from earlier pop a tire or something?” I joked weakly, trying to hide my jealousy.

Ryan’s usually mischevious eyes flashed for a second before returning to their usual glint. “Naw, he just had …another delivery to make.” He finished tightly, eyes moving to the ground. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up again, a tone of non-chalance in his voice as he brushed away the previous comment with a wave of his graceful hand. “What’re you doing here, anyways?”

“N-nothing really,” my voice faltered, “Just sitting around, I guess.” Which wasn’t a lie, exactly. That’s all I was doing, now.

He laughed, his teeth glinting in the light of the setting sun. It was that time of day when everything had a warm, gauzy glow to it. Everything seemed to radiate a friendly, yellow light, as the laughs of the beautiful boy filled the air.

“Yeah, it sure smells like nothing,” he said, still laughing “I’m shocked, honestly, Little Brennie!”

I blushed what I could only assume was a furious shade of red.

He reached over, still laughing, and pinched my cheek playfully. “Aww, don’t be so embarrassed, I don’t judge!”

I wanted to reach up and place my hand over the cheek he had just touched, and hold it there, as if to contain the feeling of his skin on mine, but I refrained.

“Well, I gotta go. There’s a lot of track left to walk,” he said, jerking his head towards the long stretch of unwalked track behind him.

“How far are you gonna walk?” I asked, without thinking.

He smiled at this, and paused a second before replying. “‘Til it ends, I guess.” He waved a slight goodbye, then turned around, and started walking again. At first, his silhouette against the sun was sharp, defined. But as he walked farther away, the lines began to grow fuzzy and tentative, all as his arms swayed up and down, striving to find just the right balance.

Jon jumped out of the traincar, giving me an oddly suspicious look.

“What?!”

He paused, then said:
“‘ Just some guy from my history class’, my ass!” He said, putting sarcastic finger quotes around the first part.

I blushed a brighter shade of red, giving Jon the finger before turning to make my way to my car and mumbling “Fuck you…”