The Girl Who Wore Jordans

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

I ambled down the stark sidewalk, looking at the various houses and few cars go by in a slow haze. For the time of year, it was abnormally warm (probably a repercussion of global warming— or “climate change” for the conservatives out there who believed it only to be a “theory”). There was a light breeze, and the temperature couldn’t have been less than sixty degrees. Besides being perfect walking weather, it also created the perfect conditions to ponder over life.

      For the past few years, I had felt slightly disconnected from the world, not wanting to partake in some of the obstacles surrounding my life. As I moved from place to place, nothing had been overly constant with me. My appearance to the outside world had changed drastically from the girl I once was at fourteen, and yet, my intentions, ambitions, and dreams in life had somehow managed to remain the same.

      I had moved around a lot, and most people I had at one point grown fond of had slipped through my fingers in someway, becoming a mere name and memory. Back in Boston, I had real friends. I could count on them for anything. They were loyal, trustworthy, and pretty damn great basketball players; they were also boys. 

      Something about the male gender was so much more endearing to me than the female. They didn’t keep grudges about stupid things like talking behind one’s back and were upfront about everything. I liked that. No bullshit. Everything was real. Boys were easy to understand. Well, some boys.

      Sometimes, I felt as though girls got slightly (or, more than slightly) intimidated by me. I was the girl they saw their boyfriend talking to in a more animated conversation than they could ever have. At some of my previous schools, girls had threatened me about talking to their boyfriends. I spoke to whom I wanted— that was never going to change. Sure, I had come across girls as enthused by the sport I loved as myself, but, generally, they weren’t able to keep up with me on an intellectual level and let petty things get in the way of friendship. I liked hanging with boys.

      “Lizzie!” someone shouted, jolting me out of my nostalgic thoughts. I turned, taking out the headphones that had been on my ears, and hung them around my neck. Dylan.

      “Hi,” I breathed, becoming aware of the fact that I was wearing only a T-shirt, mesh shorts, and Jordans.

      “Nice kicks,” he commented, looking down to my feet. 

      “Yup,” I said, noting that when walking around the neighborhood, wearing more “feminine” clothes was a must.

      “So, what’cha doing?” he asked, dropping the subject of my shoes.

      “Riding a horse,” I stated, using the wonderful gift that was bestowed to the world long ago: sarcasm.

       “Chill.”

       “What are you doing?” I inquired, eyeing the area around me.

       I was in front of a gray house on the smaller side, the disarranged garage wide open. From where I was positioned, I could just make out the jumble of rakes, trash barrels, power tools, discarded furniture, arbitrary pipes, and a heap of other miscellaneous things generally found in the depths of garages. In the driveway beyond, an aged truck was parked, the color a rusty shade, though, an odd streak of vivid red was slashed across the hood, looking to be recently applied.

       “Oh, ya know, I was about go around and tag some shit,” he said, holding up a can of spray paint I had completely overlooked. The canister had a red streak surrounded it, leading me to the brilliant conclusion that the color within was indeed the reddest of sorts.