Page 16 of This I Promise You
She leaves her perch and moves to stand behind me and looks over my shoulder to see what I’m working on. “First of all, I go to class. I have to if I wanna be in the musical. We just had auditions forRENTso I’ve been preparing for that as well. Not to mention I’m always in the art center until late working. Artistry never sleeps. We just run on different internal schedules.” She moves to sit on my bed. “And second of all, don’t come for my books. It’s a dope-ass book and you’d do well to read somethingmodernnow and again. My bookstagram friends would be so disappointed. Though if you need a book rec, let me know. I gotchu. Actually I have the perfect series you should read that’ll go with your wolf tat.”
I turn around to face her. “Booksta-what?”
“Nothing. Now, order a pizza and meet me in the living room in fifteen. I’ll find something to watch. It’s gonna be a long night for both of us. Wewillbe friends by the end of it.” She stands and saunters out.
“You don’t have better things to do on a Friday night?”
She turns around, aghast, feigning a wounded heart. “Ouch. Consider yourself lucky I’m gracing you with my presence. Thank you so much for me being here.” And then she does the one thing I never would have expected… She fucking curtsies. This woman is batshit. And I’m dead!
I laugh so hard I can’t breathe. Huxley is laughing because I’m laughing and I laugh harder because she sounds like a goose. And then I think about the goose attacking me the other day and I fall out of my chair.
I needed this. I really fucking needed this. Huxley’s determined, I’ll give her that. No harm in making friends, I guess. It would be nice to have someone in my corner for once. When I finally get my shit together, I agree to her terms. “Fine. But if it’s notSchitt’s Creek, I don’t want it.”
“Oof. He has great taste. Okay, I see you.Schitt’s Creekcoming up.”
* * *
An hour later, Huxley is sitting on the floor facing the pizza on the coffee table. She throws her crust into the box and turns down the volume. “So, tell me, Paul Acre, who are you? Where did you come from? Why are you here?”
I sit up from where I was lying on the couch, place my elbow on my knee, and run my hands over my face. “Uh. Well. Um. I guess I’ll start with the basics. I was born and raised in Leawood, Kansas. It’s a suburb, kinda, of Kansas City, Missouri. Went to college at UMKC, University of Missouri - Kansas City. But it wasn’t for me. I needed to get out of there, so I picked a random school with decent weather and bounced. What else is there to tell?”
I legit don't know what I’m supposed to say. I don’t like small talk. I don’t like getting to know new people. It’s all too much of a hassle, and since no one sure as shit actually sticks around, what's the point learning all this shit about them? It just takes up space in my brain that I could use for something else. I don’t know what else I would use it for, but that’s not the point.
“Firstly, the weather here is complete trash. Like literally, the whole thing needs to be thrown away. And secondly, that’s all great, grand, and glorious, but it still doesn’t tell mewhoyou are, Paul.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Okay, let’s start with this.” Huxley closes the pizza box and sets it on the floor under the coffee table. “We’ll do some rapid-fire questions and you just say whatever comes to mind first. Okay?”
I throw myself back as dramatically as I can with the biggest this-is-such-an-inconvenience sigh that I can muster and slide down the couch like I’m made of slime. “Sure, I guess.”
Huxley ignores my tantrum. Smart girl, she is.
“Okay, favorite animal?”
I flash my tattoo. “Wolf. Duh.”
And just like that, Huxley and I spend the night getting to know each other. By the time we’re two large pizzas and one empty wine bottle in—Huxley’s doing, not mine—I think we might actually be friends now. She fires off question after question like she’s Alex Trebek. And it’s fun! I never thought I could have this. It’s weird, me having a friend like this.
“Biggest fear?”
“Time.” I sigh. Always the biggest fear question.
“Huh?” She cocks her head like a dog and moves her curls to fall over her right shoulder.
“T-time,” I stutter. “I’m afraid of…time. Gah, I know it’s fucking weird and irrational. But like… It’s a losing battle, yet I’m always trying to win anyway, ya know? Getting ahead of it is impossible. Falling behind is too easy. You can’t get back any time once it’s lost. Time steals and never gives anything back. It takes your youth. It can take your mind. Time literally kills people, everyone. It brings life, sure, if people give it the correct tools by having sex, but it willalwayskill. Time is a bitch and a half.”
Damn. I need to write that down.
Huxley is silent for a while after I finish my explanation. She’s playing with one of her curls. It’s either a nervous tick or something that she does while she’s thinking. Probably both. “I’ve never heard it explained like that. Whoa. I mean you’re right. But who even thinks of something like that? Interesting. I’ll needtimeto process that one. Ha! See what I did there?”
I’m shaking my head and chuckling because that was actually a funny pun. She's ridiculous! “Ha ha. Good one.”
She pauses to check her phone and goes to the kitchen to get herself another bottle of wine. So I pick up my phone too, to see if I’ve gotten any new messages.
Nothing.
I haven’t heard from my brothers in weeks and I’m actually kinda hurt by it. Trevor is the oldest and then Jace and then me. Then there’s Dani and Felix, but both are too young to really have a relationship with. Though my brothers and I were always close.
