All The Shadows We Made

Chapter 9 - October - Jamie

October

Jamie

"Shall we, my ladies?" I affect my best Irish brogue and proffer my hands to Kat and Maggie. They're both perched on top of the rickety old picnic table in the park across from MHS, hair glowing in the late afternoon sunlight.

"Why, certainly, my good sir." Kat flicks her cigarette onto the browning grass before taking my hand and hopping off the picnic table. "Mags, you ready?"

Maggie does her little half-laugh. "Bitch, please. I was born ready."

I brush a strand of auburn hair out of Kat's face, tuck her hand into the crook of my right arm, and place Maggie's hand in the same spot on my left. I drop the brogue. "Then let's do this thing."

"Hurray for doing things!" Kat pumps her fist.

Maggie does the same thing on my opposite side. "Doing things is the best!"

I roll my eyes. Truthfully, I think how excited Kat and Maggie get about normal things is cute, I don't think I've had the ability to be that excited since I was maybe ten, but that's become my role over the last couple of weeks since Kat and I started dating. Kat gets excited, she drags Maggie along with her, and Mickey and I sit back and roll our eyes at our silly women. I love it.

Kat lets out a big, dramatic sigh full of fake offense and tosses her hair. The waves catch on the breeze, hiding the twinkle in her green eyes. "Whatever, Jamie. You know you like it."

"Me? No, not ever." I muster my best indignant face, which is honestly really tough when your girlfriend looks so cute you want to kiss her right then and there.

"Suuuuuure you don't," Maggie chimes in from my other side.

"Yeah, Jamie, don't lie. We're the best thing that's ever happened to you." Kat sticks her tongue out at me.

I pretend to consider, wrinkling my brow and looking slowly from one girl to the other and back again as we head towards Mickey's house, and then nod and look as defeated as I can. "Damnit, woman, I hate when you're right."

Kat smiles that quirked smile. "I'm always right, honey. You know that."

I roll my eyes, for real this time. "Yes, dear."

The girls high-five and Kat laughs her big laugh. "You heard him, Maggie. He said I'm always right."

Maggie drops her hand from my arm and does a little half-smile that means she thinks Kat and I are being ridiculous ourselves. "Yep, he can't take it back now." Maggie walks behind my back so she's on Kat's other side. "Oh, dude, did I tell you what happened today in Spanish with Mrs. Moreno and Jenny and I?"

"No, what?"

The girls start chattering about Mrs. Moreno and something she said to Jenny Schwartz, who seems to be the only girl they talk to other than each other. I tune them out as we stroll to Mickey's. The air is crisp in that way you only get in the middle of fall. Leaves crunch beneath our feet and swirl from the maple and oak trees onto the sidewalk at the slightest hint of a breeze. We had our first real frost last week, and it shows in the way the air nips at my nose and chills the tips of my fingers. It's the time of apple cider and hayrides and when girls start wearing those oversize sweaters that make them look like adorable midget versions of their summer selves. It's my favorite time of year. Just as proof of how well we go together, it's Kat's favorite season, too.

If you'd told me at the start of the school year that I would spend most of my lunches with Maggie and Kat, I'd have laughed at you. But that's my life now. I meet Kat at the park in the mornings and stand with my arms around her while she bends my ear about whatever has somehow managed to happen to her since the night before, and then she repeats it all to Maggie when she shows up a few minutes before the homeroom bell. The three of us walk together to the gas station at lunch, or squeeze into the back of Sam's little Honda Civic, me on one end and Maggie on the other since Kat has the shortest legs, and Kat and I share a smoke while Sam and Eddie tell us about whatever shenanigans they got up to the night before.