Silver Chevy Silverado Part 2
Everything is more quiet in the mornings. The air is fresher and cooler because it’s had all night to cleanse itself and there’s a distinct stillness that sweeps the environment an hour before the sun rises that’s never present in the night. It’s like a reset button is pressed and the humans in my neighborhood are quietly booting up for their day while in their beds. What if we’re all robots and when we sleep, we’re just rebooting?
I hear a car door open in the distance.
It’s easier to think in the mornings, too. You don’t have all the thoughts and events from the day nagging at you incessantly and weighing you down. Sometimes, when I wake up from a bad dream or one where my crush actually likes me back, I wake up in a pensive mood–– but other than that, I feel like a clean slate every time I open my eyes.
“You’re an early riser,” observes a familiar voice. I jolt to attention and see someone sitting in a silver Chevy Silverado with the door swung wide open and a pair of legs dangling out. It sinks in that I had scaled up the hill, which my house sits on top of, in a thoughtful daze. My mind was wandering in an endless spiral––but my body is here.
Oh my God, it’s him. I snap back to reality. “I could say the same for you,” I reply casually, folding my arms in front of my chest in a futile attempt to feel less vulnerable.
“Yes, but I have to go to work, what’s your excuse?”
“I don’t need an excuse to be up early,” I insist. “And if you have to go to work, why are you just sitting in your truck?”
“I like to drink my coffee, smoke and catch up on the news before I go. It’s kinda my routine,” he explains as he grabs his coffee mug from the dash.
“Hm, and I like to walk around my block in the mornings. That’s kinda my routine.”
“Oh, sassy,” he smirks, taking a sip of coffee out of the large, plain-white mug. Our eyes remain locked as he does so, just like when I took the cigarette with my lips last time we spoke. His golden-brown tanned skin creates the illusion of his iris’ being translucent as his almond shaped, pale-green eyes gaze into mine. He has faint light-brown freckles speckling his face. How have I never noticed them before?
Then it occurs to me. “Wait, did you just adopt this routine now? Because I’ve been walking every day for the past six months at the same time and I’ve never seen you.”
“I usually come out after you’ve finished your walk,” he pauses, takes a sip of coffee again, and smiles as he says, “How are you up so early?”
I roll my eyes. “I just get up early, okay?”
“Aren’t you like eighteen?” he asks in a condescending chuckle.
“Nineteen,” I snap, taking a step closer to him and the silver Chevy Silverado. “I’m nineteen.”
The previously sweet scent of musky vanilla finds me again but this time, it’s nauseating. Something about the tone of his voice rubs me the wrong way.
“Oh my God,” he exclaims in a dramatic near-shout. “Tell me what nineteen year old voluntarily wakes up at five-thirty in the morning.” His head flings back with the mug glued to his lips as he retrieves the final drop of coffee from the bottom of the mug.
I feel embarrassment crawl up my throat. “Me!” I exclaim defiantly. “I do,” I say as I point my index finger at my chest, jutting my head towards him. A familiar scent immediately harrasses my nose, but it’s not vanilla, weed, or tobacco. I sniff audibly.
“Is that alcohol?” I ask incredulously.
“Irish coffee,” he replies casually, raising the mug in the air in faux cheers.
“Ah,” is all I can say as I stand there dumbfounded. It smells pretty strong to me–– how can he drink that stuff so early in the morning? “I still don’t understand how waking up early is so odd.”
He sets the mug down on the dashboard. “Waking up early isn’t odd, you just generally don’t see it amongst the people in your age group.”
“Oh, right. Sorry Professor Pedo, I forgot you got your PhD in teenaged girls. How old are you again? Fifty-four?”
“Twenty-seven but that’s irrelevant.”
“Yes it is. Now tell me, for research purposes of course, what causes you to wake up at such an early hour?” he asks, stroking an imaginary beard.
I flash a dumb smile and humor his question. “Like I said, I like to walk before the sun rises.”
“Profound!” he says, making a pack of Camels appear in his palm in one swift motion. He hops out the driver’s seat, leans against his truck, and places a cigarette on his lip. “And what time do you sleep to wake up at this hour?”
I feel my cheeks get warm. I look down at my pristine white sneakers and whisper, “Nine o’clock.”
“Wow, you’re truly an abnormality in the teen world,” he says flatly as he lights the cigarette hanging limply from his mouth.
I feel my cheeks get red hot with anger now rather than embarrassment. Would it kill him to be nice to me for one second?
I decide to shift the conversation away from my atypicality. “If you’re gonna shit on me, you might as well give me a cigarette.”
He folds his arms across his chest this time, his meadowy-green eyes squint accusingly. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
My cheeks get even hotter–– if that’s even possible. “Well…I don’t,” I reply candidly.
“Then why did you ask to bum one last time we talked?”
“Because you do it and it seems like a sociable thing to do,” I blurt before I can think. I clasp my hands behind my back to keep him from seeing them shake. “Considering my current state as an abnormality of human nature, I have to find every way I can to fit in.”
He ignores my reference to his previous rude remark. “Well you shouldn’t. I’m trying to quit,” he says dryly as he takes a drag.
“Quitting is for losers,” I say softly, kicking an insignificant pebble off of the dry light-gray asphalt road.
“Is that so, Old Wise One?”
“Don’t you have to go to work?”
“Not for another five minutes.”
“God! Why are you even talking to me?” I spit with uncontrolled frustration. The razor bite of my own voice surprises me.
“What?”
“I was just walking around my block totally spaced out and you could have let me walk right past you without me noticing or just sat in your truck whenever you normally do, but you chose to come out early and stop me and make me feel like shit––and I doubt it was to honestly critique my sleep schedule or point out my abnormalities.”
Our eyes meet and, while I imagine mine as raging and livid, his are cool and collected. My stomach sinks to the floor. This entire interaction has been incredibly off-putting. The way he spoke about my age and my so-called “abnormalities” was belittling. And while he did push my buttons about the best-friend-thing last time we spoke, he did so in an endearing, witty way. He’s just being a straight-up dick right now.
“Like I said, I like to get a rise out of you,” he finally responds with a twisted chuckle and takes a drag.
“Well I don’t appreciate being risen by my friend at six in the morning.”
“Who said we’re friends?”
Ouch. “Well obviously we’re not because you think I’m abnormal and make it a point to say it to my face.”
“Would you rather me say it behind your back?” he asks, raising his eyebrows in question and, in turn, creasing his forehead.
“I think it’s been five minutes,” I reply flatly.
He glances at his phone, “It’s been exactly five minutes. At least your internal clock doesn’t seem to be abnormal.” He flashes a fake smile then hops into the driver’s seat, slams the door, and turns the ignition. I stand dumbfounded yet again–– in awe of his abrasiveness––until he rolls down his window and says, “See you around Old Abnormal One.”
“Drive safe Old Alcoholic One!” I shout as his car skids onto the road.
I stand in the same place he left me for quite some time–– watching his silver Chevy Silverado turn the corner, hearing him speed off to a distant land, and then standing solemnly in the still morning air, staring at the pebble I had kicked earlier.
I’m stuck in the same place I’ve always been and can’t move.
An overwhelming wave of loneliness washes over me.
I trudge to my porch, feeling as if the balloon that grew inside of me every time I spoke to him just popped. The lead returns to the soles of my shoes and that heavy hollowness grows inside my chest once more.
