4 - Beige

“Well, yeah.” Bryan had an almost offended look on his face. 

“How do you know where I live?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded normal and he didn’t notice how tense I was.

“I live next door to you,” he said like I was a brain injury patient.

“Oh,” I said stupidly. I relaxed and shook my head. “Really?” I had been in that house all summer. How had I not noticed him before this?

I knew the answer. I hadn’t been paying attention. I had checked out once I arrived at my new foster home in Mesa. 

“Yeah,” Bryan continued. “I wondered if I offended you somehow since you moved in two months ago and didn’t once acknowledge my existence until today.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t notice you. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m glad you have terrible aim.”

“What?”

“Do you not remember missing the garbage can and accidentally noticing me today?”

“Right,” I said. “Again, sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I’m not. You ready?”

“If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble,” I said. Usually, I wouldn’t have dreamed of letting someone I barely knew come near where I lived, but for some inexplicable reason, I felt like he could be trusted. Or, at least, he didn’t mean me harm. My heart rate was already back to normal.

“I’m going that way anyway.”

“Right.” I was overcompensating. I felt like I had inconvenienced him and acted like a crazy person. I was off balance in general from today. Literally too, on the crutches. I needed some time alone to reset.

I followed Bryan out of the classroom, to our lockers, then out of and away from the school toward a residential neighborhood. On the left side of the street was a church with students pouring out of it.

“Do people normally have church services during the week here?” I asked.

“Those are the Mormons. You know, the kids who get a free period to leave campus and go to seminary at the church to learn about God and stuff. These guys must have seminary for their last period.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ve never heard of this before.”

“Welcome to Mesa.”

Mesa was a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, with a population of nearly half a million, and the latest stop during my tenure in foster care. Apparently, it had a lot of Mormons.

“Have you seriously not noticed the Mormons before?” Bryan asked.

“No.”

“Geez. Okay, I guess my self-esteem can recover now.”

“What?”

“If you didn’t notice the hoard of people leaving the church every Sunday, I don’t feel so bad that you didn’t notice me.”

“Oh.” I felt like a jerk. 

“You know,” he said, changing the subject. “I heard they have to memorize scriptures and sing hymns every day.”

“Sounds campy.”

“Yeah, but what’s life without a little church?”

“Five days a week at school, plus one on the weekend? Sounds like a lot of church.”

“Maybe, but if you believe in something, why spend your time doing anything else?”

“Can’t argue with that logic,” I said. It basically described my obsession with researching stuff for my Hoax Files.

“And they all wear those rings that look like a shield with the letters CTR on them.”

“CTR?”

“Choose The Right.”

“Choose the right? Like everything has a right and wrong option? There are endless possibilities of not blatantly wrong options.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

I hesitated. My life experiences had made me certain that I had no idea what the right thing to do was. I researched, so I had a lot of information, but not a lot of things I knew to be true. I tried to make the best choices with the highest probability of keeping me safe, but everything was a risk. I wasn’t about to tell Bryan about my Hoax Files, though. Describing my situation to a stranger had a high probability of getting me committed to a psych ward. 

“Just a thought,” I said. “You know, life is full of gray areas. How do you navigate that into black and white?” 

“So you’re a moral ambiguist?”

“I don’t think that’s a word. A relativist, perhaps. What's right for one isn't right for another. What's right for one may hurt others, so is it really right? There are too many variables.”

“True.”

We crossed the street into a residential neighborhood and turned right at the first street, where the only thing between the backyards and the school was the street we just crossed. Bryan stopped in front of the first house on the right. It was the closest house to the school and the church.

“This is your house, right?” He cocked his head toward the beige two-story structure, and my eyes followed his motion. It looked like every other house on the block. Suburbia. Bleh.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Not used to it yet, I guess.”

I took the lead, unlocked the door, and we entered the house. When we reached my room on the second story, I flipped on the light. On the right side wall were a desk and a window, against the next wall a bed with a blue comforter, and on the opposite wall two doors on either side of a chest of drawers. My green Army duffle bag was sticking out underneath the bed. 

“This is my room,” I said. I hobbled into the room. Bryan followed me and set my school books on the desk next to the window. He pulled back the curtains, which had completely blocked the sunlight, and dust exploded everywhere. He coughed then poked his finger through the blinds to look out the window. I sat down on the bed and set the crutches down on the ground.

“Ha! Look here,” he said. He pulled open the blinds. “That’s my room.” He pointed to the second story window directly across from mine on the house next door, no more than eight feet away from mine. 

“Time to get over yourself, Sera,” I said under my breath.

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you the past few months.”

“My life was seriously lacking in intrigue, and it gave me something to think about. What’s life without a little intrigue?”

“Indeed,” I said. What would life be like without the intrigue of constantly wondering if someone was going to sneak up from behind and slit my throat?

“Seriously though,” Bryan continued. “Don’t worry about it. It’s expected here in Arizona. Neighbors don’t say hi. Haven’t you noticed every house is a fortress of solitude with a ten-foot cinder block wall surrounding it?”

“Now that you mention it,” I said. I don’t think I even looked at any of the houses, including the one I was living in, all summer. Of course I didn’t notice.

“Hey, where are your first three classes? I can probably come help you with your books.”

“I have gym first hour, so I won’t have any books. Second hour is E-234, and third is W-173.”

“I’m in the same buildings for those hours, so I can come to those rooms and help you.”

“That’d be great. Thank you again for everything.”

“Do you need help with anything else, or shall I just collect you in the morning?”

“Collect me?”

“You’ll need help carrying your books to school tomorrow, right?”

“Oh, right. I mean, are you sure?” 

“Indeed.”

His play on my word was clever. He was clever. I liked it. “I’m good for today. I’d walk you to the door—”

“No need,” he interrupted. He turned toward the window and opened it. “I can go through here.” He started to climb out the window.

“What? No!” I hopped over to him. “You’ll break your legs!”

He looked over his shoulder at me. “What’s life without a little risk?” He faced forward and jumped.

I gasped, thinking for sure he would plummet to his death, but he effortlessly glided over, grabbed onto his window sill and hoisted himself up. His window was cracked open. He sat on the ledge and pushed it the rest of the way up. Then he swiveled his strong legs into his room while I stood flabbergasted.

“See you in the morning,” he called to me. He shut his window and closed the blinds.

I couldn’t speak, or move, or think. I just stood there, mouth agape. It wasn’t until a cat meowed and rubbed against my leg that I snapped out of my stupor. 

“Hey, Clark,” I said, looking down at my foster mom’s black cat. I sat down in the chair at the desk, and the cat jumped up on my lap like he had every day since I moved in. 

“How are you, little guy?” I said. He looked up at me with intense, light blue eyes and pushed his head against my hand, trying to get me to pet him. I scratched behind his ears, and he started purring. It was a great distraction from my overwhelming thoughts. 

Eventually, I heard the garage door open and then footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Hi, Sera, dinner’s on the counter,” my current foster mom, Lucy, called through the door.

“Okay,” I called back. 

I heard the door down the hall close, and my stomach growled. I tossed the cat on the bed and hobbled downstairs to the kitchen and found a couple of take-out boxes on the counter with a pale pink Post-it note on top.

Got Pad Thai, yellow curry, dumplings. I know you like those. Hope the first day of school went well. 

–Lucy 

P.S. The side of peanut sauce is for you.

I dug into the boxes and focused on the delicious food instead of all the things I didn’t want to think about.