Castles on the Sand

Eight

I get to my knees, pull the curtain aside, and flip the window latch. Carson stands in the rock garden, his hands in the pockets of his khakis, looking like a total preppie, which he is, I guess. Our school is well funded enough to be almost like a prep school. “How’s your nose?” he asks.

“It hurts,” I say.

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

I touch my face, gingerly, then fold my arms.

“John told me the gist of what happened. Maybe it's time to get a new best friend?”

“You don't know the whole story.”

“Nobody deserves what you got. Did you report her to the police?”

“What? No.”

“You should think about it.”

“Sure. I'll think about it.” There's no way I'm reporting my best friend to the police. I look past Carson to the street.

He glances over his shoulder. “Hmm?”

“Did you walk here?”

“Yeah. I thought, you know, bringing the MAV woulda been kinda excessive.”

“You call it the MAV?”

“Yeah. Doesn't everyone?”

“You live clear down at the other end of town.”

“My family all go to bed at eight.” At my baffled stare, he adds, “Because, you know, we have Seminary in the mornings.”

“Seminary?”

“Yeah, religion class before school. That's why all of us LDS students arrive in the MAV... what, did you think we just did that to be... um...” He stares at me.

“Weird?”

“Yeah, which we are. But not in a hive mind, we go everywhere together kind of way.”

“How does your family run a restaurant if you go to bed at eight?”

“Well, okay, our parents manage the restaurant and get home at about one and our grandmother watches us but she's deaf as a post.” He shrugs. “So I have until one before I get caught. Anyway... what are you doing?”

I'm across the room now and turn to look at him again, a pair of jeans and a clean shirt draped over my arm. “Just let me change. I'll come out.”

“You don't have to do that.”

“Please. You walked, like, three miles to get here.” And, I think, I'm not inviting you in. That would be extra weird. I go into the bathroom, switch clothes and then return to my room to put on my jacket and climb out the window.

He looks at me, then down at himself. “So... what do people normally do when they sneak out?”

“Usually they wait until later.”

“Right.”

“And then we get deep fried burritos at The Shack.”

“Is that, like, a ritual? It has to be later?”

“Well, midnight is when Hernan takes over.”

“So? They run the deep fryer all day. That's how they do their chimichangas. Let's go.”

“I'm pretty sure Beatriz and Ernesto aren't gonna let us deep fry EVOL Burritos in their fryer,” I say as I tag along after him.

“You ever asked them?”