NED
"Hey," Ned said, once they were far away from Santa Land and he could see the hopeful red glow of Target getting closer. Sam had said little, either. Ned plucked Sam from his mind spiral before the silence suffocated him. "Will you text Lena and make sure she got home, okay?"
"Oh, uh, sure."
Ned's stomach was performing acrobatic flips. He tried focusing on the sidewalk and driving to feel better... but he knew this wasn't car sickness (or golf cart sickness either). It was butterflies. Thousands to millions of butterflies going nuts inside his stomach because he almost kissed Sam Hayes again after five years. Because he told Sam how he felt. Finally.
Ned would never be the same.
"What's the damage? Do you think he'll make it, doc?" Ned asked, eyeing Gregor before focusing back on the road. With every decision, Ned was proving the fact he didn't deserve to be The Gregor's caretaker. At every turn, he has endangered its life. This didn't bode well for Ned ever wanting to keep a pet.
Ned reached over and patted the gnome's tall red hat. "I'm really sorry," Ned told The Gregor again. "But it's going to be okay. We're gonna get you fixed up and we'll figure this out. No problem."
"Hmm, well," Sam mumbled and held up The Gregor, who was a little scuffed and without a whole foot. "Glue should do the trick-'' Stopping himself, Sam must've noticed something as he peered closer at the bottom of the little gnome's foot.
He grabbed his phone for the flashlight and read aloud what he saw, "Hines. 2010. Hey, Ned, does the name Hines ring a bell?"
"No..."
But Ned was retracing his steps in his memory, searching for a time that name might've come up and if it had to do with The Gregor. He had few precious memories of kids around town owning The Gregor, but Hines didn't stick out at all. That would've been eleven years ago and Ned would've only been five years old.
He never thought about The Gregor's age. In some ways, Ned assumed The Gregor existed since the dawn of time, but Ned never thought past just seeing The Gregor for what it was and not where it came from.
Someone gave it a name.
Someone glued those sunglasses onto its face.
"What about 2010?"
"No, but..." Ned shook his head. "But do you think that could've been the original Gregor owner?"
Sam finished, "Could be the year he graduated, too."
"Or maybe the year he made The Gregor."
"Yes!"
Grinning, Sam grabbed Ned's arm and Ned smiled back. He had finally made a decision and this one, he was going to stick to until the very end... and that decision was letting something else make the decision. It was a perfect plan. "If this Hines' person created The Gregor, then I think that's who should take him. This person should decide what to do. You wouldn't have a Creekside yearbook, would you?"
"No..." Sam said strangely, like how he started any conversation where Ned might not like the ending. Ned's butterflies were now squirming with worry. "But I know who does."
#
Mathew Geller.
Ned had never met Mathew Geller in person. He went to another school and usually, when Sam and he hung out, someone's parents joined, which meant Ned's were not allowed.
"Hi, Matt," Sam said on the phone while they walked through Target.
Matt.
Ned rolled his name. It wasn't a pet name, but not what anyone else called him. He didn't know Sam was still close enough to Mathew that the guy would answer if Sam called. They never spoke on the phone. If Ned called Sam, Sam would send him straight to voicemail and shoot him a text asking if it was a medical emergency.
Sam was smiling too.
His real smile.
Not the polite one he used on adults, so they'd stop talking to him.
Ned turned his back on Sam to peruse the large selection of super glue and roll his eyes, one of those eyes being covered by a froze bag of peas they nabbed from the frozen food aisle. A Target associate had given them a weird look when they took a bag and immediately slapped it over Ned's eye. Santa had a right hook so mean, he must've learned it from the Grinch.
Sam assured the employee, "We're gonna pay for it!" He laid his hand on Ned's back like his bodyguard and led him away.
Ned was full of that warm gooey feeling that made Ned feel like a specially picked out present, that made him feel different from anyone else in the world. Sam picked him out from a batch of hundreds of kids like him and said: "this one."
Ned was the one.
Not Mathew Geller.
"No, no, Maggie is the same," Sam had laughed. "If anything, she's worse."
The nice warm little feeling went away the more Ned realized Sam probably still talked to Mathew, even after they broke up. That Sam had this whole other world where Ned didn't fit. Wasn't allowed. Would cause more harm than good.
It made Ned wonder who broke up with whom.
Surprising Ned, Sam's hand appeared as Mathew was still chattering in his ear. Sam lifted the bag of peas with a serious needle point look that twisted into something unsatisfied. He gently set the bag back onto his face.
He pulled the receiver away, letting Mathew talk. He asked in a hush, "Should we get some pain medicine or maybe some snacks?"
God. Ned liked him so much.
Ned shrugged a little. "I mean, yeah, unless you want to eat candy canes for the rest of the night." There was a whole bag of them in the glove compartment.
Sam made a face like that was the very last thing he ever wanted to do his entire life. Shaking his head, Sam whispered, and it took Ned a second too for him to realize Sam was talking to Matthew again. "So, uh, I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. I don't remember when your sisters graduated, but would you happen to have a Creekside yearbook for 2010..."
A pause that Ned seized to meet Sam's eyes. With Sam's attention, Ned wriggled his eyebrows and Sam smiled, putting his hand over Ned's face so he could focus. "Uh-huh. Okay." Ned moved around Sam's hand and pulled out an old favorite. Ned could flare his nose super-fast while he wiggled his ears.
Sam grinned wider and moved his hand to hide Ned's face again. Taking that hand, Ned intertwined their fingers together and led Sam to the pharmacy section. It was rare Sam let Ned take the lead, but Sam made zero effort to retrieve his hand. At least together, no matter who was out in front, made the journey better. Eventually, Matthew agreed to give them a yearbook and they gathered Advil, chips, and the much needed super glue, but once they paid and left the store, Ned kind of wished they stayed inside.
Chaos reigned on the parking lot. Someone in their brave compact key lime green car backed up and slammed into some mom's minivan that must've been made out of glass and tissue paper or that tiny car packed a punch like an iron fist. It was cartoonish and Ned half expected one of Santa's elves to crawl out.
This created a disturbed sea of cars, a parking lot lit up by red brake lights and low beams staring at Ned and Sam's legs as they passed.
"Do you mind driving?" Ned asked. He looked down at Gregor, his chest clenched tight. "I feel like it's my responsibility to fix him."
Squeezing past the traffic, Sam climbed into the driver's seat when the blare from a car horn nearly sent Ned onto the parking lot ground. He whirled around to see Mr. and Mrs. Hayes on the other side of a line of parked cars.
"Sam, it's-"
Sam cut him off. "I know who they are."
#
SAM
The heat from all the car engines burned through the fabric of Sam's dress pants. He was hot all over, but Sam Hayes froze in place. His stomach broke off its branch and plummeted, splattering at his feet. Once, when him and Margaret were kids, they snuck out one night to hangout in the treehouse out back. A bright light suddenly flashed across them and the twins screamed. It was their father, catching them by surprise with his flashlight.
They had been caught.
Sam had been caught again.
"Samuel Hayes!" His father shouted and pushed up his glasses. Two lanes of cars separated them. One trying to get out, a line of parked, and then, his parents just on the other side. It was a tight fit as people were on foot trying to find their cars in the madness. "What do you think you're doing? Get in this car, right now!"
His instincts screaming, Ned hide behind Sam. So uncomfortable, he stood there like a splinter wedged inside of Sam's foot.
"How did you find me?" Sam asked.
"Your sister," Sam's mother said, pushing past his dad to put her face in the open window too. "She said something about a Snapchat location or whatever. Doesn't matter. Get in this car. What are you driving?"
"It's a golf cart and I can't right now," Sam said. "I'm helping Ned."
"Well," his father huffed. "Stop helping, Ned. Put the keys down and get in the car. We're going home. I can't believe you. Leaving the school without telling us to go hang out with him, even though we've told you a thousand times to stay away from the kids across the street."
Puffing up his chest, Sam stated. "No."
A hush fell between them, across the river of cars. His face prickled, Sam stood on top of the golfcart seat, white knuckling onto the roof lip for support.
"No?"
"Did he say no?" His mother shook her head in disbelief. "You're beginning to sound like your sister."
Margaret gawked from the backseat. She said something, but Sam couldn't hear her and her parents didn't respond. Noticing that too, she got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. "I'm running inside for a water."
"Sam." His father took a deep steadying breath like his patience was almost gone, but Sam didn't flinch.
"I said no," Sam said it again and it felt so good, he said it one more time. "No. You have to stop telling me what to do."
"Samuel Hayes," his father said, using his harshest hand motion invented: the chop. "You are sixteen years old and I am your father, so when I tell you to do something, you just need to do it."
"I don't know what's gotten into you," his mother all but sighed, covering her chest as if Sam were attacking it.
"I'm just being honest." Sam swallowed, unfamiliar with the word. "I'm not saying you can't tell me what to do. Obviously, tell me not to run around with scissors. Tell me to go to bed at a reasonable hour and to stop drinking coffee at eight pm."
Sam's parents looked at him like they still didn't understand. Like they were never going to understand. "But you can't tell me who and who I can't hang out with! Stop telling me who to date or what to do with my life. It's mine."
"Oh, we never do that."
"Sam!" Sam mocked his father. "Go to business school like me! Join the debate team and get a part-time job at my office this summer! Which last way longer than the summer" Sam groaned and dropped his shoulders, the pressure building and building and pressing and pushing and suffocating and Sam let it all out at once, "Well, I'm done! I'm quitting the debate team and you know what? I hate the piano! And! And! I've been going to book club—"
"Excuse me?" His father's eyebrows nearly flew off his forehead.
Sam yelled right over him, "And I'm not going to become a dentist. I'm gonna go to a liberal arts school and become an editor and make no money my entire life!"
"Stop making a scene!" His mother shouted.
"Get over here!" His father yelled.
"NO! And you know what?" Sam's ears were burning, a searing sharp noise striking through his head. One loud screech that Sam had to scream over. "I don't know when I'll be home! I'll be too busy doing drugs and having sex with Ned! Let's go!"
His father's arm slipped, and he nailed the horn with his elbow. Jaw clenched, Sam jumped back into the golf cart, slamming his body into the driver's seat. He glared at the traffic and whipped right in front of the next car that honked and Ned yelped, grabbing the sides and holding The Gregor against chest. Sam whizzed through an empty parking spot to find the next lane and whip into traffic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Lol.
I love drama and getting messy, what about you guys?
What do you think about Ned's idea to find the creator of The Gregor? Do you think they'll be able to find them? And we get to meet Mathew Geller! If you don't remember, he was mentioned in Chapter One and is the guy Sam's parents set him up with after THE kiss.
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