Finding Atlas

After my encounter with Atlas at Bardia's, I couldn't help but look for him at school. Once I had a taste of his honey hot chocolate, I couldn't help but be interested in him. Not attracted to him, of course, no, I hardly knew him, but my interest was certainly piqued. I finally saw him wandering towards his locker around mid-October, with a pencil behind his ears and glasses perched on the bridge of his nose.

I was walking with Delphine when I saw him, and while I wanted to call out his name, I felt, oddly enough, possessive of him and I didn't want Delphine to have a part of him. Although Delphine expressed some sort of romantic interest in him, I wanted to have Atlas to myself, even if I, myself, did not express any sort of romantic interest in him.

It had been a month since Atlas had first given me my honey hot chocolate ad Bardia's, and despite my frequent visits to the café, he never uttered another word to me save the several "Would you like honey in your hot chocolates?" and "Three fifty, pleases" I had heard in the past month. I bid Delphine goodbye as she walked off to her car, and then I swallowed my pride and went to talk to Atlas.

According to school gossip, Atlas had moved into the old Mercer house—apparently it had been renovated to its previous glory—down the street from my own house with his parents and two sisters. Rumor had it that his mother was a crazed woman who, half the time, didn't even know that Atlas was her son. I tried to quell the pity I had for him, but a piece of it came back up the moment I approached him.

Instead of saying hello like a normal person, my words to him were, "I heard about your mother." He turned to me and laughed drily.

"Which rumor did you hear?" he asked. "Is she a crazy prostitute? Or a drug dealer, perhaps? Maybe she's a witch, you should probably keep your distance, maybe they're all true," his locker shut with a soft click as he turned and walked away, presumably to his car.

"No," I called out as I jogged over to him, "I just—I heard that you have to take care of her alone." I kept going as I walked alongside him to his car. He looked at me with a sort of sardonic expression before giving me a small side smile that made me question reality.

"Do you wanna go for a drive?" He asked me, and I looked at him skeptically. While I did try to see the best in people, I wasn't all too keen to "go for a drive" in a stranger's—well, Atlas's—car. Flat out rejecting him seemed cruel to my soft heart, so I did the next best thing: raising my eyebrow. To my surprise, Atlas just rolled his eyes.

"Do you wanna know the truth or not?" Atlas got in the car as I quickly walked over to the passenger side. As I fastened my seatbelt, he stuck the key into the ignition and though I expected to hear the purr of the engine, all I heard was weak sputtering.

"She takes a while to start up," he admitted.

"She?" Atlas flushed pink with that question before replying, "Shelly, my car. She's old, but she's a beaut." With a few more turns, the engine started. As he backed out, my hands reached for the seaglass that dangled from his rearview mirror until Atlas floored the pedal and I was jolted back into my seat.

"Are you crazy?" I screeched, and he only laughed and gave me yet another one of his side smiles.