The next day I woke up to the sound of bacon sizzling on the pan. The smell makes it to my nose as I make my way downstairs. I turn the corner to the kitchen and see Ryan at the table with a mug clasped between his hands still wearing his sunglasses. He turns his head toward me. I feel like he is looking at me. I am still in my sweats, but I don’t wear a shirt when I sleep. I suddenly feel insecure as I sit down across from him at the table. He is still staring at the exposed skin on my chest. My heart rate picks up speed slightly. He finally looks down at the liquid in his steaming mug.
“Carl, good morning honey. Today, can you show Ryan how things are done?” My mom asks, flipping bacon in the pan.
“I guess so,” I respond blandly.
She gives me a look, but that’s all. After breakfast, I slip on jeans, and a T-shirt. I walk out into the hallway where Ryan is waiting for me. He is wearing black jeans, without holes this time, another black v-neck shirt, and his sunglasses.
“Ready?” I ask
He nods slightly and follows me as I walk outside to the barn. As the day goes on, Ryan starts to figure things out pretty easily. He doesn’t say a word to me the whole time, and that’s fine with me. Closer to the end of the day we are throwing hay in the barn onto the hay loft. We take a break for a second and Ryan sits next to me on a hay bail.
“Cameron? How old are you?” He asks with full confidence.
“It's Carl, and I’m 16. How old are you?” I respond, annoyed that he called me by my last name.
“114,” He says, deadpan.
“Um, are you trying to mess with me?” I ask, annoyance creeping into my voice.
What? How could anyone believe he’s 114? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. This guy is so strange.
“Serious,” He says, like it was a thought he was thinking hard over. “Well, if you don’t believe me, I’m 17 years old.”
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask hoping he says yes.
He sighs, “Fine. Go ahead,”
“Why do you always wear those sunglasses?” I ask, raising an eyebrow and pointing to them.
“Because I don’t like my eyes.” He says, turning his head to me.
Who the hell doesn't like their eyes so much that they never take off their sunglasses?
“Well…you can’t wear them forever,” I say, taking a drink of my water.
“Says who?” he smirks.
“Me. It's creepy dude,” I finally turn my head to look at him.
“Do you… Want me to not wear them?” he asks, his head turning down fidgeting with his hands. I suddenly want to see his eyes.
“It doesn't really matter, but it will still creep me out,” I say like I don’t care, but I do.
He slowly pulls off his sunglasses, revealing closed eyelids full of long lashes. He opens his eyes slowly and makes direct eye contact with me. His eyes are the deepest shade of blue. They strike me speechless. I can’t stop staring.
“Stop,” he says suddenly.
“I’m sorry, but your eyes are so…” I say the words slipping out of my mouth.
“Shut up and don’t mention them again. I’m not wearing the sunglasses anymore. You should be grateful,” He looks away from me and starts to work again. I keep catching glimpses of his face as we finish up chores for the night. I try not to stare at him. He’s beautiful. At dinner, he walks out the front door again, without any word. He shows back up when I am getting ready for bed. He doesn’t have stains on him this time. I wonder what they were last night. I make my way to my bedroom after brushing my teeth, catching a glimpse of Ryan in his bedroom writing in a black notebook. I stop to look through the crack of his door. He looks up slowly, and I turn quickly and hurry to my bedroom. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling parched. I go downstairs as quietly as possible, trying not to disturb anybody. As is step down the staircase, I hear small movements in the kitchen. I listen a little closer, but all I hear is the sound of cloth rubbing together as someone moves around. I make it to the last step peering into the kitchen. Ryan is sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his arms.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? We have a lot to do in the morning.” I say startling him with a jolt.
He looks up at me and tilts his head. Then he stands up and gives me a curt nod. I watch him walk up the stairs, his black sweat low on his waist, and old band t-shirt hanging loosely over his shoulders. I grab some water, chug it down, and go back to bed. As the week goes by, I get more and more confused with Ryan. He was wearing eyeliner the morning after I saw him in the kitchen. He never eats dinner with us, he just always walks out the front door. During breakfast or lunch, he just sits there drinking tea. I have never seen him eat any kind of food and I sometimes hear him downstairs at night.
So one night I decided to follow him.
***
The woods are quiet, and the moon barely makes its way through the tree leaves. I follow as closely as I can behind Ryan. He left the house right before we started dinner. Tonight was the perfect night because my mom had errands to run and my little brother was at a friend's house.
I step on a stick and the sound echoes throughout the trees. I wince, but Ryan doesn’t stop moving. If anything, he speeds up. I follow him for a few more miles until we reach a clearing. It was the neighboring farm’s cow pasture.
What is he doing here?
He clubs over the fence and over to one of the cows. As he gets close to one of the cows I trip on a discarded branch and crash into a nearby bush. I hit my head on the ground a bit. When I recover, I look up and see Ryan glaring at me. He walks over to me quickly.
“What’re you doing?” He asks urgently looking around.
“Falling into bushes, if you can’t tell,” I say half jokingly. “I could ask you the same thing.” I cross my arms and glance behind him at the grazing cows. He looks down at the ground scratching the back of his neck.
“Well… um. I don’t think I can explain it to you. I might have to kill you,” he says. And I can’t tell if he is joking.
“Ha ha,” I reply sarcastically.
“Well.”
“Are you like poisoning the neighbors' cows or something?” I am starting to get annoyed with this guy. He looks around quickly, his eyes sparkling in the sun, and his dark outliner contrasting the gleaming whites of his eyes.
“This is no place to talk about it. How about we talk about this later,” he says, grasping my shoulder and turning me around. We walk back through the forest silently, the moon shining through the trees, giving us enough light to make our way back safely. We make it to the house, and the lights are off. Mom and Connor are asleep in their rooms as I quietly make my way upstairs, with Ryan following close behind me. I make it to my bedroom and walk in, he stands in the doorway, hesitating for a second. What’s his deal?
“We will talk in the morning. You need to get some rest.” He whispers just quiet enough for me to hear.
“No! You will tell me now!” I demeaned him while trying not to make him a stranger after he finally felt safe enough to talk to me.
He smiles at me for the first time, since I met him.
“You are so stubborn Cameron.” He chuckles, as he shakes his head.
“Carl.” I nearly growl.
“Bye.”
He turns around and begins to walk to his bedroom next door. I silently run behind him, and grab his hand making his body jolt in surprise but then he briskly spins around on me. He is so close, I feel his warm breath on me. It is too dark in the hallway to see his face, but I can see shadows, and I know he isn’t smiling anymore. He gets closer and says in a husky agitated voice “Go to bed, Carl.”
He finally calls me by my real name. It took him long enough. I can hear the edge in his voice, and I take it seriously. I start to back up slowly, then turn into my room still thinking about his smile in the shadowed room and how it vanished instantaneously. When I look back, he is already closing the door to his room. I have a hard time falling asleep, but finally, rest comes to me.
***
109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMEAkYybEKJ
The next couple of days are slow and have a colder feeling. Now that Ryan knows what is expected of him when doing chores, he stays far away from me. Most of the time he does other chores than I do. I have extra time in the day, now that he is doing half the chores. So I read some books from the attic that my dad left. I try to follow Ryan some nights, but he gets away too fast for me to keep up. I finally caught the nerve to address him. After dinner about a week after the night in the woods, he is in his room with his door closed. I hear the soft sound of pen to paper. I knock lightly on the old door “Hey it's Carl. We need to talk. Now,” I say it forcefully, hoping he will take me seriously.
I hear some shuffling.
“Cameron, I’m not really in the mood. Maybe another time.”
What's wrong with him? Something sounds different in his voice. I can’t tell what it is. I don’t push any further. For now.
“Um… Ryan?” I start to ask.
“Mmm?” he responds in a murmur.
“Are you…um…alright?”
I don’t get an answer for a couple of seconds.
“Yeah, why?” He sounds normal now as if he spent those seconds fixing how he sounds.
“Nothing, you just sounded strange.” I walk away before I hear what he says back. My face feels hot, and my hands are sweating. Why would I ask him if he’s ok? I barely know him. I don’t know if he sounds different or not. I bet he moved closer to the door, making him sound normal again. The next couple of days go by in a blur. There are very few conversations with Ryan. He stopped leaving during dinner, but he stayed in his room. At one point he even joined us for dinner. He barely touched his food, but he started a conversation with my mom about vacations and places he has been. He has been to so many places, too many places to count on my fingers. He doesn’t mention his parents much, but when he does it is very vague. After dinner, I follow him upstairs.
“Ryan?”
He turns around before entering his bedroom.
“Cameron stop bothering me about the other night!” He says kind of annoyed.
“I wasn’t going to ask about that, but now you bring it up…” my voice begins to rise. I raise my eyebrows and cross my arms.
“I’m not doing this with you.” He says shaking his head and closing the door in my face, but I put my foot in front of the door before it closes all the way.
“You're going to tell me what you were doing or I will inform my mother about your whereabouts,” I say threatening him.
His face pales more than it already is.
“Come in,” I say quietly.
I walk into his room and sit on his bed.
“Well… this is embarrassing. You can’t laugh… or tell anyone.”
“I promise I won’t, on both accounts.”
What is it that is so embarrassing? I haven’t seen him act like this before.
“I’m scared of the cows!” He says so quickly, I barely understood him.
“Huh?”
“Cameron, I am scared of the cows, so I have been trying to get over my fear of them. When you saw me in the forest I was trying to pet the cow. I have been trying for a while. I finally did it, so I am not too scared anymore.” He says all this while looking at the ground fidgeting with his hands.
“That's it?” you’ve been leaving at dinner and keeping it a secret…because you’re scared of cows?” I ask smiling at him.
“Stop you promised you wouldn’t laugh!” he says with a small laugh.
Then he grabs a pillow and smacks me in the face with it. I grab the other pillow and hit him as hard as I can with it. We start cracking up, and he starts clutching his stomach rolling on the ground.
“It does sound pretty pathetic if you think about it,” he says between fits of laughter.
His perfect white teeth are showing completely and his laughter is like music. I have never heard someone laugh so beautifully. We finally calm down and he looks me in the eyes, and I look at how perfect his eyeliner is on his bottom lids.
“So… what were you going to ask before I yelled at you?” He asked with a small smile and a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, yeah! The state fair is this weekend. My mom takes my brother and me, but she wants me to find someone else to hang out with. Do you… want to, um… come?” I ask, but I am nervous he might reject me. I haven’t hung out with anyone my age since Dad left. Other than Josh.
“Sure, but just so you’re aware, I have never been to a county fair.”
I gasp dramatically.
“What! You are very uncultured!”
He chuckles and shakes his head, “Yeah, so I’ve been told.”
“Who has the nerve to tell you that you’re unculture? Shame on them!” I say jokingly, getting off his bed. He rolls his eyes.
“I’m going to bed,” I say beginning to leave his bedroom.
“Good night, Cameron,” he says with a small smile.
“Carl,” I roll my eyes. “Good night.”
109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdC9I8Fbktd
