“Uhm are you fine with this?”

“Ollie, I’m fine. It's a little warm. Can you turn on the AC?”

“Uh the AC’s broke. You have to roll down the window.” He gives me a look.

“When I said the car was busted, I wasn’t playing.” He sighs and rolls the window down.

We come up to a red light and he starts the conversation this time.

“Ya’ know middle of the school year is a pretty strange time to get transfer students.”

I look over and see he’s staring out of the window. Sure guess we won’t talk about the elephant in the room. Sure.

“Uh, I’m not really...proud of the reason. Are you sure?”

He looks over with a serious look in his eyes, “If you don’t want to talk about it we don’t have to.”

“No, I just don’t want you to see me in a certain way,” I say looking at the traffic light.

“Well, now my curiosity’s been piqued. Besides how can I judge my knight in shining armor.”

The light changes so I choose not to acknowledge that title.

“Well as you can tell I’m a lil tall.”

“A LITTLE? If I’m 5’10 then you're like SEVEN feet tall AT LEAST!”

“I’m 6’6. Stop overreacting. ”

“If I round you’re seven feet so you're basically a giant.”

“Thanks do you want to hear the story or not?”

He looks straights into the windshield and thinks for a sec. He zips his lip and throws the ’key’ out of the window. Then gives me a pointed stare.

I sigh “Well, as I was saying I’m tall and I’ve been told that at times I can be a bit unapproachable at times. But I never really received any backlash. This is a small town and everybody’s really known each other since we were in diapers. But… uh recently I had a hard time making new friends. My best friend since ...well… forever had been my only friend to stick around through middle school but… i don't know. When we got to high school something changed. ”

We finally pull up to the dinner with an obnoxious 24-hour neon sign in the window. I find a parking spot and turn off the car and hop out. I walk towards the door and I can hear a door close and rushed steps behind me. I hold the door open and Jamie walks in with eyes still on me. I look up to the menu and say

“I really like their strawberry milkshake. Their Chocolate malts are really good also.”

“There’s a difference?” He gives me a confused look then shrugs. ”Ehh. You decide.”

I walk up to the empty counter and ring the bell. From the back through the small kitchen opening erupts an old-sounding voice.

“WE’RE CLOSED!”

“Gloria the sign says 24 hours outside.”

“Is that you Stray? ”An older woman walks out from the kitchen and looks at Oliver unimpressed and pays no attention to Jamie shimming behind him.

I look behind me to Jamie and step aside. “Jamie this is my Grandmother, Gigi.”

Susan wasn’t real but my Grandmother Gloria is.

“Grandma Gigi this is Jamie” She finally looks over to notice there was someone else here.

“Nice to meet Ma’am.” He holds a hand out to her. She stares at him then back up to me.

“New friend?” She walks from behind the counter to stand in front of Jamie and looks in his eyes. After a couple of seconds, she shrugs and walks back to the register. Yeah, she also has the same genes as me so Jamie looks a lil unsettled. I place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze while giving Gigi a look.

She sighs and says, “Well Oliver I suppose you’re a better judge of character than me”

Jamie gives me a look at her words and I drop my hand from his shoulder.

She continues, “Well then it's a pleasure meeting you Jamie dear. Stray you can lock up, yes?”

I nod. She throws me the keys out of her pocket and heads to the back. I go behind the counter and look at Jaime with a surprised look on his face.

“I’ll be right back with your drink sir.”

I go into the kitchen and wait till I see the door close behind me. What the hell has this night turned into? I was ‘possed to go to the party for like an hour then go home and re-watch Teen Titans or something, not this. I turn around and see Jamie walking around the dinner looking at little knick-knacks scattered on the walls of the dinner through the little window on the kitchen door. I think he’s feeling better now. It would have been heartless to leave him there but I wonder what the hell happened to him. I can’t get over how scared he looked when that girl told him something. She looked completely calm as if she was talking about the weather.

I let my mind wander while my body makes the milkshakes on autopilot. When I’m finishing the first drink Jamie is already in the kitchen. I didn’t notice him come in. I silently offer him the drink and he looks a bit scared for a second but accepts it anyway.

“If you're wondering, I work here on weekends so that’s sorta why I know the difference between the two drinks.”

“What is it?” He watches me as I restart the process to start making my drink.

“A strawberry milkshake. I didn’t feel like making the malt.”

When I’m finished with my drink he says, ”You didn’t finish your story.” I turn with my drink and find him seated on the kitchen counter nibbling on his straw.

”This is a restaurant, get down. Follow me.”

He follows me back to the front. I search the parking lot. Gigi's car is gone so now the lot remains empty except for my truck, with the windows still down. I hope no raccoon pops up in my truck cuz it looks like we’ll be walking home. I sigh and sit down at the stool behind the register and Jamie hops up onto the counter and finally sips his drink. I can feel his eyes are on me but I focus them out the window on the cars passing by.

“What time do you need to be home.”

That gets him to look away and he says, “Usually when there’s a party I don’t go home until morning so” he bites on the straw “whem evry you wat z fin”

“Do you like the shake?” he nodded and I continued the story.

“Oh yeah, my Best friend. Well not anymore. But uh we had made it to high school and he was stoked about all the parties and games but I honestly didn’t care what we did we always had fun. But after winter break he seemed more distant and made more friends. After us just having each other back I wasn’t used to being alone again. So” I sigh. And continue in a quieter tone. “ I grew jealous. The weekends we used to hang out became obsolete and from long talks about anything and everything became just heys in the hallways.” I put the drink down on the counter and squeeze my hands together.

“It hurt. He shut me out. Cold. For no reason. I tried to think back to what could I have possibly done. I started to sleep less and stay up playing video games. I would fall asleep or not pay attention in class so my grades began to suffer. My dad obviously knew something was up. Sean hadn’t shown up in a while. So one weekend he took off from work and took me to Six Flags. We hadn’t been there since my mom left so I could tell he was worried about me. But it didn’t work. I was so sad and angry. My dad took off time from his job because he saw something was wrong with me. He cared, but all I could think about was-” Jamie had hopped down from the counter and opened my hands. They were bright red from the squeezing when I looked down to see what he was doing I felt a tear fall down my face. I wiped my face and he handed me a napkin to blow my nose.

“You don’t have to continue. I understand if you don’t want to.” He said softly. The only sound in the dinner is a little jukebox playin’ too low to hear and cars still passing by.

“No. I’m better now.” I take a sip of my drink. It’s still cool, that's good. It makes me feel a little better and I continue.

“I eventually heard rumors that he didn’t actually want to be friends with me and one day I had planned to confront him about it and he had joined the soccer team so I waited after school to talk with him, maybe it was just a simple misunderstanding and we could go back to being inseparable. I had found the locker room and I waited till after the practice so I could talk to him and I heard my name come up. So I walked closer to hear what they were saying. He said...”

I took another sip of my shake. I took in a breath for four seconds then released it for eight seconds. Then again and again till my breathing became regulated.

I sighed “ He said that he never really wanted to be my friend, that I was scary and basically kept him as my hostage friend. That I was controlling and never gave him breathing space and that he was happy we weren’t as close anymore. That I was probably into some shady stuff because of my family. My dad’s a contractor and my grandparents own a dinner. How’s that a shady line of business? I ran. Away from school, home, I wanted to run away from life. I didn’t last long. Someone as big as me you can’t really hide I’ve learned. My grandma found me at Riley Park, eyes red and sunken from tears. She said when she found me I was as cold as death but for the first time in months, I felt human. But I couldn’t talk. After a couple of weeks of radio silence, my dad scraped some money together and got me therapy sessions in the town next over. The first drive was interesting he told me where we were going and that he loved me.”

“…”

“He cried. He told me he couldn’t lose me too. I never saw my dad cry before. Not even when my mom left...Not because he was a big strong man but he always tried to see the positive of a negative situation. I figured if he could try I could try. I took off from school. Spent more time here at the dinner learning how to cook and on weekends I’d go with my dad to Lenseaux to have my therapy session. It was a long time before I was able to talk again freely and sometimes I slip up but I’ve learned that no matter what happens. I’m human. I’m entitled to my emotions. I’m supposed to get angry when my friend of five years ghost me out of nowhere. I’m allowed to be sad when I hear what he said. I’m also allowed to not hold the burden all to myself because others care about me. If I shut them out then I’m no better than him. It was my therapist who convinced me to go back to school. They said I was too bright to have my academic career end so short. So my Dad and my therapist thought a change in pace would do me good. So that’s how I ended up at John H.Baker Charter High school. It was also them that convinced me to do sports again.”

“Again?” It's the first time Jamie’s spoken in a while I glance at him. He’s obviously paying attention by the look on his face. His dark brown eyebrows have made their presence known on his face and he’s starting at my milkshake like it committed a war crime. I push the war criminal towards him and he sips on it. I guess he liked it more than he led on. His eyes fall back on me silently saying continue.

“I… used to play soccer. I joined my neighborhood’s little team, that’s where we met. We were originally going to try out for the soccer team together but ya know what happened. I originally tried out for the soccer team but Gilmore scooped me up and I’m kind of thankful. I don’t know how I would have reacted to seeing him on that field. I didn’t know anything about football but it was something I wanted to try. I did promise my therapist that I would make an effort to get to know my teammates but we both know what happened. I was happy to meet some of them tonight and realize they’re not as bad as I thought they were. I feel like that’s the most I’ve said all year. Haha.” I look at the clock on the wall, 11:49pm. I probably talked too long. He probably didn’t want to know all tha-

“Thank you for...” His pause grabs my attention and I look at him. “There’s probably a lot I could thank you for just from tonight. But I guess I’ll stick to thank you for accepting my invitation and for being there. I don’t think I’m quite ready to talk about it but don’t worry this isn’t the last of our talks.” He throws an arm over his eyes dramatically “Nay I think this is only the beginning. ”

He moves his arm to open one eye and it meets mine. I’m nodding I guess he was expecting a verbal response. He laughs after he realizes. I grab the empty milkshakes and put them in the trash. I do a once over of the restaurant, it doesn’t need to be cleaned. I checked the bathroom they’re good too. I put everything away in the kitchen so I can just lock up. I make my way to Jamie still sitting on the counter checking his phone. Oh, his friends must be worried about him. Afterall he did leave the party unexpectedly so of course, they’d be worried.

“Hey, I don’t know about you but I’m ready to crash.” He swings his head in my direction, apparently caught up in his texts.

“I thought this place was 24 hours,” he responds

I laugh, “That signs a damn lie.” He laughs too, not expecting that kind of response, “Everyone who comes here knows we're open til 12 on weeknights and maybe 2 on weekends. My grandparents are in their 60’s. I don’t work here full-time anymore so they been talking about taking it down but that still hasn’t happened.” I say motioning to the door.

He pockets his phone in his jeans and follows me out the door.

“Full time?”

“Yeah. I work on weekends to cover the dinner rush and evening hours. If ya stop by one weekend I’m sure Gigi would give ya a discount.”

“I’ll have to hold you to that.” I give him a genuine smile and lock the door.

As we approach the truck I put my arm up to stop Jamie from walking straight up to it and he gives me a confused look. Now time for the moment of truth.

I peek through the windshield, “YES! No raccoons!”

Dumbfounded, he whispers “raccoon?”

I struggle with the lock and state, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a mistake I like to say I’ve learned from. ” I open the passenger door. He looks from side to side, back at the seat, then me, then reluctantly he hops in.

“So where to?”

“Well before you whisked me away. I left my car at Gilmore’s.” He gives me a Chesire grin, I snub from his look and turn on the engine.

“Do you have your keys? I can drive you back. If you left them inside I can go get them for you.”

“Nah, I left my keys with someone and they already drove home. Apparently Makenna ended the party early for some reason, wonder why? I wasn’t expecting to be sober halfway through the party. I prefer the way things turned out though.”

He receives a text, answers it then puts it away, then continues.

“No, I suppose you can drop me off at home. I guess there’s a first for everything.”

We ride with the jazz station from earlier still playing with the only directions being said here and there.

As we pull up to a two-story house he lowers the radio.

“I said what I meant tonight. We’re friends now Ollie.” He hops out the truck and slams the door.

“Hey, I know I said it was a hunk of junk but you don’t have to slam my door. ”

“That was to ward off any stowaway raccoons,” he says with an innocent look on his face. It isn’t till he goes to close the door does he see I haven’t pulled off yet. He blows a kiss at me then laughs. I guess at the face I made then he closes the door. I pull off and turn the jazz a lil higher.