Queen of the track

XX

Chapter 20.

Gray

At the end of math, my final class of the day, I'm relieved to be at my locker sorting out what homework to prioritise tonight, just to get out of this damn school.

I feel a presence lurking behind me, even with other students slamming lockers and rushing through the hallways. I turn to see Ryan standing behind me, his body tense with nerves. His hand clenches the strap of his backpack so tight I can see his knuckles straining.

"You're right." He says to me, not looking at my face. "You deserve to know."

I look over his tense body. "What changed your mind?"

I close my locker and Ryan shrugs, finally looking at me. "I thought about it, and you're right. I'm the only person in this place who gives a damn about you, and you seem to be the only one who gives a damn about me anymore. You deserve to know what happened."

A smile tugs at my lips as we start to head for the doors. "Looks like we're reaching a new level of friendship, wanna get matching bracelets?"

Ryan smiles a little too, "No, but I'll settle for a milkshake."

I nod, "Yeah, me too."

When we get outside, we each get into our respective cars and I follow Ryan out of the parking lot, and further into the main part of town, where most of the restaurants, boutique shops and entertainment places are.

We park up, and walk a few minutes to a shake shack, ordering our flavours of choice and settling into a booth near the back of the shop.

I look around the retro 60's decor; checked flooring, colourful wall paper, and even an old jukebox playing some Elvis Presley song.

"I feel like I've time travelled." I comment, glancing over at the lady behind the counter taking someone's order, her outfit fitting in with the theme of the place, and she even had her hair up in that bun they used to have in the 60's.

"Yeah, this place is usually popular with the old folks, but I think it's cool." Ryan shrugs.

"How'd you come across this place?"

"My dad used to bring me." Ryan says. "We don't come that much anymore, since he lives on the other side of town with his new family."

I nod solemnly.

Someone brings our drinks over, and after a couple minutes of us critiquing each other's choice of flavour, I level him with a hard look.

"Alright," I say, "no more delaying it. We're here and there's no one else from school."

No one else from our generation, for that matter.

Ryan swirls his straw around in his drink. "I don't know where to start." He says quietly. "There's just...it would have been a lot easier if you were here last year, you know?"

I nod silently, wanting him to find a good enough place to start without me bothering him.

He sighs, "So...you know already that AJ and I..." His voice grows quiet as he glances around. "You know about us--you guessed. But we were friends way before that. I went to Kindergarten with AJ and Raven, Rissa and Connor too, but we didn't like Connor then."

I snort, "Can't imagine why."

Ryan ignores me. "We all grew up together. We did everything together, you know? Jonah came along at the start of Middle School, and Connor started hanging around too, I think he had a crush on Rissa, but that didn't last long. Alex and Rissa met some point in Junior year and they were inseparable ever since." He smiles to himself.