Of Moons, Birds, and Monsters

Luke held the door open for me, and I walked into the empty Chevron. The only reason why this tiny gas station market was open was because of the Icee machine, and the burritos served in the back café. If one or both of those factors were gone, the place wouldn’t make it.

“You might want to grab your slushie first,” Luke said. “I like to stack it up.”

I grabbed a small Icee cup, and filled it to the brim. I scooted over so Luke could fill his. He grabbed the largest Icee cup there was, and filled it past the brim, and to the very tip of the plastic top. I could feel my eyes grow in astonishment at the amount he was planning to drink. The poor boy was going to make his bladder explode.

“Want to split a Twix?” he asked, walking towards the counter.

“Sure,” I shrugged, surprised by his food choice. A giant Icee and a chocolate bar. He was going to crash from a massive sugar high.

Luke paid for the candy and drinks, and followed me to a tiny booth by the cafe in the back. I sat across from him, and watched as he chomped down on the king-sized candy bar.

“Isn’t that a little too much sugar?” I asked with a small smile.

“Are you MY babysitter now?” he asked with a teasing grin.

“I dunno. You’re ‘baby-free at this point’”, I reminded him, using finger quotations. “So I don’t know why I would be around”

“Oh, God. That was awkward,” he sighed, rubbing his forehead with his hand.

“Tell me about it,” I snorted. “Do I look pregnant to you?”

“No, believe me, you don’t. You’re as skinny as I am. Minus the, you know,” he began to hover his hand over his chest, and tried to continue speaking. I could literally see the smoke coming out of his ears from trying so hard to come up with a word for them.

“Parts,” he finished, looking like he wanted to smack himself in the face.

“Wow, Luke.” I couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Parts? Are you in elementary school or something? They have a name, you know?”

“Fine. Boobs, okay?” he shrugged, trying to keep a straight face.

I laughed to myself. Him trying to be so PG and serious made it even more funny. I don’t know, there was something about Luke that just made me less scared to be myself. I could laugh and joke around him. I wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable yet, but I was nowhere near as freaked out as I was before.

“Whatever,” he laughed, looking down at his large cup and stirring the red slushie around with his straw.

I took my straw and started to pull it out of the top slowly and back in. The sound it made was just funny to me. I always enjoyed it. It brought back a kind of simple childhood innocence.

“What are you doing?” Luke asked, chuckling in confusion.

“It sounds like a duck,” I shrugged, and repeated to pull the straw out of the top to show him.

“You’re so strange,” he laughed, hanging his head.

“Uh, excuse me?” I asked, trying to sound offended. “Have you taken a good look at some of your friends?”

“They have an excuse,” he defended. “They’re males; they are born a little weird.”

“That’s not an excuse!” I argued, taking a sip of my Icee.

“Sure it is. Mason and Danny can’t help that they’re a little odd. Scotty, he has no excuse.”

“Scotty is a character,” I laughed. That boy didn’t have a serious bone in his body.

“Are you working on the seventeenth?” Luke asked, fiddling with his straw. “It’s two Fridays from now.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It depends on where Jack is working, if your mom is out of state, and if I have night school,” I answered.

“You won’t have school,” he replied, slightly shaking his head. “Every other week you have Friday off. This week, you have Monday off. Next week, you have Friday off. It’s an alternating schedule.”

“Oh,” I said, a little shocked. I didn’t know that. I would be the fool trying to go to class when no one else was there. “Well then it depends on your parents. Why, what’s up?”

“The boys are planning on going on a camping trip, and I wanted to know if you would want to go,” he shrugged.

“Me and Jack in the woods? Luke, I don’t think that would blow over well,” I told him with a grimace.

“Jack will be with the rest of the guys. He wouldn’t risk looking like a tool in front of them. He’ll be good,” Luke promised.

“I’ll see if I can go, but I can’t promise anything,” I told him, squishing my mouth to the side.

He nodded and took long gulps of his Icee.

“You and I need to hang out more often; no sisters,” he said.

“Isn’t that what this is?” I asked, a little confused.

Luke twisted his face in thought, taken aback by my statement. I guess I stumped him.

“It could be different?” he shrugged, taking another sip of his Icee.