Jared's Little Goof

3 - Snippets From a Time Between

I had no idea how he managed to swap so many layers of clothing so quickly, but it felt like an inappropriate question to ask via text, so I decided to wait until lunch to address it.

Our cafeteria was both an irritatingly full and empty-feeling space, an open rectangular room with high ceilings and white blocks comprising every wall. There were the tables themselves at the bottom and blue fluorescent lights above, but the space between was filled by obnoxious kids ranging from 14 to 18 and air.  Everyone was allowed to have their 'cellular devices' out at this time, and anyone who wasn't too busy shouting among their table-mates did.

I was listening to a playlist of Doja Cat songs that Riley had ironically sent to our group chat in one earbud (which I genuinely liked) while the other was tucked into my shirt's neckline. It was fifth hour, one of the earlier lunches, and a line was building up. We had two options daily; today, it was brick-colored fish patties or a salad with something labeled as mystery meat. Neither sounded extraordinarily appealing, so instead of buying lunch, I squeezed out of the row and skirted around the sea of students and food being thrown to arrive in the corner where Jared was sitting.

He always packed food to eat for himself, so occasionally I would partake in the spoils. This would just have to be one of those days. If I hadn't committed to memory where we almost always sat, I would've gotten lost along the way. My eyesight wasn't good enough to see the faces at individual tables, but I didn't really want to buy glasses. I seriously doubted that they would appear even slightly attractive on me, and if I wasted money on things that weren't necessary, that would be on my conscience—even if my family wouldn't care. After all, seeing more than blobs was just a luxury. It was fine.

I lowered myself to the bench. "You're just gonna starve, huh?" Jared said, then threw a bag of potato chips at my face. It hit its mark, then fell into the palm of my hand.

"Woah," I whispered in mock surprise, "that's a lot. I usually only get a cracker, are you sure I'll be able to finish all this?"

"I know, it's a lot. If you want, you can give it back though..."

But I was already vacuuming up the bag's contents, and it was too late to take back. "I could do that bird thing where they regurgitate the food," I said.

"Hot. Y'know, cool idea, but I'm gonna have to decline."

I groaned loudly at the suggestion and then consumed the last of the crunchy, salt-and-vinegar chips as Jared began to wheeze. If any of the freshmen further down the table heard, they didn't have the confidence to complain.

〜❁〜❁〜❁〜

"How was your day?" My dad couldn't make small talk. In fact, he should avoid it at all costs, for the lack of good it ever did him.  But here I was in his Ford, listening to him try.

"Fine, I guess? I had a test in Geometry, but I think I did okay. Oh, and I finally got Jared to start listening to Troye Sivan during study hall, but he almost got his phone taken away by Ms. Morane after like two songs."

"Oh, that's interesting," my father said absentmindedly. "Are you two... you know? Because you've been spending more time with him lately, and I just want you to know that if you are, I sup—"

"What?" I was a little confused. Did he mean to imply Troye Sivan music buddies, or something else that made more sense?

"You know... oh, nevermind. That's a no, then."

"Uh, okay?"

He dropped the subject, and I resumed staring out the window at the houses we passed. Most were of lightening pastels, with a noticeable chunk in varying states of disrepair. Their lawns remained kept, but the energy that had resided in this town decades ago was fading. People didn't put as much time into their public appearance as they used to. No one talked to their neighbors like they did in those old 1950's films or held parties. It was all getting 'sleepy,' I guess, might be a good phrase. Interest in the local area was getting smaller, not growing, because there was nothing left for the people here.

We didn't live very close to the high school, so I had another thirty minutes, if not more, to wait. There were only so many of the same lots one could stare at before they got tired of it.

And then my phone screen lit up with a text.

"Y'all wanna go out for ice cream tomorrow? 'Cuz I've been too cold to want any."

It was from Riley. She was an enigma when it came to texting; she used abbreviations and was fluent with memes, but if her sentences lacked punctuation, she was 100% not sober. I responded with a quick "sure, as long as we get to go skating too," because most roller skating places around here offered a restaurant anyway. Jared hadn't responded yet, but he would later agree.

Luckily for me, as long as my dad got a heads-up an hour ahead of time, I was basically free for whenever. My mom, on the other hand, was overprotective; however, she worked too late to really enforce her guidelines and went to sleep soon after she came home. It wasn't that she had to be at her job so late, but I think she always felt an obligation to provide something.

〜❁〜❁〜❁〜

Hours later, Jared and I were in a Facetime call while I watched the sun's descent below the horizon. The sky was orange with streaks of the same magenta found in watermelons, and it was beautiful in a way that was so much grander than anything I felt elsewhere. I had opened my window to feel the gentle breeze against my skin, and so that it would be easier to show Jared the view with my phone. Birds were singing outside, their chirps reaching my ears, and I could hear a television on somewhere in the distance from Jared's end.

When I looked back towards the screen from the horizon, he was smiling at me in the same way as what we exchanged Saturday, deeper than what we used to feel. He said something that made me grin despite my best efforts.

"I'm not sure which I want to draw more: you looking so peaceful or the sky that causes it so easily." His voice made me feel different, unique in some way. I don't know how to describe it, but for him to recognize me as worth documenting in his art made me experience a rare type of happy. It was comfortable and pleasant, whatever this emotion was.

"That means a lot," I returned as sincerely as I could.

I could see his pale face blush in the camera, like we were in on some joke that I didn't understand, but it was a good something. But then the experience had passed, and we returned to talking about ourselves in general after missing out on that for so long.

I found out that Jared was an artist in every sense of the world. Not only did he paint, which I knew about beforehand, but he gardened too; I had just presumed he liked fresh food a lot, or that a relative did it as a hobby. While he didn't show me any at the time, as he said it would make him embarrassed, he wrote poetry too. He wanted to get his ears pierced, and humored the idea of dragging me along for it too. He loved works that utilized pastels, and his favorite color was the yellow on lemons. This confident, got-it-all-together guy said that the shade of yellow was both bright and that it exuded optimism: what he needed most, apparently.

Finally, Jared mentioned that I inspired him to do all those things he loved by just being there; that his imagination sparked whenever I was with him. This was the nicest comment that anyone had made to me in an extremely long time, and I'd have loved to treasure every nuance of his words, but I was so flattered that it bordered on intoxication.

When I fell asleep that night, the call had only ended a few minutes beforehand.  We were eager to resume in the morning, and there was nothing stopping us from compensating for lost time.