Kenya

I lay in my bed. We didn’t have homework except in math, which was easily done in fifteen minutes. I was feeling desperately homesick and cramped in my aunt’s apartment. I wanted back home so badly.

I called Shannon, my girlfriend. We hadn’t really broken up officially, but I knew we were broken up. 2000 and some odd miles was way too far for anything serious like it was back home.

She picked up. “Hey Ashley, what are you up to?”

“I’m homesick. So bad.”

“Ashley, you can come back here and go to college in Jersey. It’ll only be a year.”

“But the people here are so weird.” I told her about Kenya. She just laughed.

“Ashley, I told you that you were the best looking guy at our old school. It’s no surprise you are there too.”

I sighed.

I missed her so much. She was perfect. She was sweet, artistic, smart, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous. I’d wanted to date her forever until we were old enough to get married. I knew that we’d be so perfect together if we could make it that long. Then my parents had to split.

“Ashley,” Shannon said.

“Yeah?”

“When you come back, I think we should still be together, but for now I think it’s better if we stay apart.”

“Shannon, I-.”

“Ashley. Be realistic.”

“So who are you cutting me off for? It’s Bradley isn’t it? I knew you were cheating.”

“Ashley. It’s not like that.”

“Just stop.”

“Ashley, you’re being ridiculous. 2000 miles is a long way and I think we need to be apart for it. You can call me, I’ll still want to talk.”

“You do realize that if you date anyone else we’re never getting back together?”

“Fine Ashley. If you want it to be that way.”

“Bye Shannon.”

And so I broke up with my girlfriend of two years because she wanted to date other guys without me there. I turned on the TV to try and block out my mind. Then I remembered Perry.

I dug through my backpack to find the syllabus with the number written on it. I felt a little bit bad for using Perry as my rebound, but I knew she didn’t like me anyway. She just wanted to be friends. She was just so infatuated with Kenya; there was no way we would ever work.

I called her. She didn’t answer, but I didn’t leave a message. I wanted her to call me back.

The front door to the apartment opened. It was my aunt. She saw that I was home and called to me from the entryway. “How’s the man of the house doing?”

“Fine.”

She walked to my room.

“How was your first day?”

“Horrible.”

She gave me this look like she knew I was exaggerating. She knew I pulled the sympathy card on my mom all the time. It was how I got her to do things for me. It didn’t work on Aunt Trish though.

Truthfully, the school itself wasn’t that bad. It was just the people that were horrible.

“Your mom is working late tonight. I’ll put dinner on in like an hour though. There’s fruit in the kitchen if you’re interested.” That was another thing I hated about here. My aunt was the biggest health-food nut to ever walk the face of the earth. God forbid something had a little bit of processed in it.

My aunt thought I was a spoiled brat, which was probably true to some extent. My dad had a lot of money from his business and I wasn’t used to being cut off. I’d had to leave my car at home and I no longer had credit cards or anything. On top of that, I was staying in a three-room condo with my aunt and my mom. There was going to be little to no privacy while I was there.

The reason my mom ended up getting full custody of me was absolutely beyond my knowledge. If anything, my dad was clearly the more capable of the two. Actually, my mom didn’t have full custody; she just had me for 50 weeks out of 52. I got to spend two weeks over the summer with my dad.

I did my math homework.

My aunt and I ate dinner in silence.

I took the coldest shower I’d ever taken in my life. Apparently the hot water was broken and Aunt Trish had yet to call the landlord to let him know. I told her that if she would just give me the number I would call him if she was scared to. She gave me the number and I left him a message with her phone.

Once I had gotten back into bed to watch TV for the remainder of the night, I checked my phone. I had two missed calls from a number that was unknown. I figured that it was Perry, so I called her back.

Perry answered. “Hi, this is Perry.”

“It’s Ashley.”

“Oh, hey Ashley.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“I kinda didn’t expect you to actually call. I don’t know why.”

“Well, I did. But I was actually wondering if you wanted to show me around here sometime. I know it’s rude to ask that of you, but...”

She cut me off. “No. I was actually going to ask the same thing someday.”

“So maybe this weekend sometime?”

“Definitely. Just let me know at like, school or something.”

“I’ll make sure to.”

“Oh, and Ashley?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling.”

“Don’t worry about it at all.” I wasn’t sure why she was thanking me, but whatever. I mean I got the point that she was a little bit offbeat, but that didn’t really matter to me. Whatever took my mind off of Shannon.

---

The good thing about having hard classes at school was that time absolutely seemed to fly by. I had successfully avoided getting into trouble on my first week at a new school, it was Friday, I was going out with Perry tomorrow, she’d finally figured out that Kenya was gay, and she was all for me.

I was getting books out of my locker and feeling rather confident in the fact that nothing could possibly keep me from being in a good mood. And then Hulk and a few of his buddies catcalled at me. When they laughed at me, they somewhat resembled a pack of really ugly hyenas.

“What is wrong with you? I have done nothing wrong. Can you just remove your head from your ass and get the picture?”

Hulk (his name was actually Kurt; I’d known this for a while, but Hulk is much more appropriate.) stepped forward. “You’re one to talk about taking things in the ass.”

“Excuse me?”

“See, he’s sassy,” one of the cronies jeered eliciting a laugh from the rest.

“What are you talking about?” If this had anything to do with Kenya, I swore to God that I was going to personally kill him.

“I’ll let you figure it out, lady-boy.”

And with that they were gone. I had to say, for a stupid high school jock he was better than most, in the sense that he had more sense. At least he left me hanging instead of bruised. I mean maybe that’s not how bullying actually worked these days. I’d never personally been a victim, so I wasn’t sure exactly how the process went.

I just ignored him. Let him think what he wanted. He was only one person and I definitely was not going to let him get in the way of my dreams for this year.

I met up with Perry after informing my mom of where I was going. She was a bit bummed, as she had planned on spending some time with me, but we had all weekend for that. I only had one date with Perry.

We were at some obscure coffee shop and Perry was chatting my ear off about the history and blah, blah, blah. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t want to listen, I just really had no interest. I didn’t really mind though. Perry was cool. I liked her.

“So I heard that Kurt and his goons were all over you today?”

“Christ, what are you? Like Homecoming Oracle or something? Do you just know everything?”

Perry shrugged. “Basically.”

“What’d you hear?”

“That he was making fun of you and Kenya.”

“What do you mean Kenya and I?”

“Well like you guys have a thing right?” And that was precisely when I very gracefully spewed coffee onto the table.

“I’m going to assume no? So you mean you’re not gay?”

I almost peed myself laughing. “I. Thought.” I had to catch my breath. Not really, but that’s kind of how I felt. Like what was my life actually becoming? “That you wanted me to come here. Like a date.”

Perry smiled. “It’s so nice of you to like me in that way.”

“So it is a date?”

“Since you’re not gay, I suppose it is.”

“Well, I did something right today.”

Perry smiled.

We walked around town together. “It’s really a shame that Kenya’s a little less than straight, I mean even you have to admit that he’s good-looking.”

“Sure. But you know what else is good-looking?”

“Me?” she asked.

“How’d you know?” I was layering on the icing at this point, but whatever made things go the way I wanted was what needed to happen.

“Just a guess.” I took both her hands in mine and we stopped walking. Perry’s eyes were really pretty. Maybe she was even more attractive than Shannon, but it didn’t matter to me. She was next best.

“Why can’t guys just be like you? I mean you’re sweet, and pretty, and you have lovely eyes, and you make me laugh.”

I felt a little bit bad about this, but I ignored the feeling and went along with it. “If all guys were like me, I’d hardly be noticeable, right?”

“Touché.”

And we shared a kiss right in the middle of downtown.

There was no feeling though. It was just a kiss. It was friendly and platonic in my opinion, but Perry blushed and looked at me. “You’re so short Ashley. You’re the first guy who doesn’t have to bend down to kiss me.”

“I’m not that short.”

“And neither am I. Trust me, lots of ladies are shorter than me. You’ll do fine.”

We walked a while longer until Perry had to go home. She made sure that I knew where I was and how to find my way around. She made sure that I knew that I could call her if I got lost. It was sweet of her, I guess.

I walked home and thought the whole way to my aunt’s condo. Maybe Perry wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I could learn to like her. And as for my reputation, I’d have to fix that somehow. I wasn’t sure about how though. I’d figure it out. I was a problem solver by nature.