He always says it with my name. I’ve paid attention and I don’t think he does that with anyone else. Not even Everett. I like to hope that he says it that way just for me.
I shrugged and told him not much.
Shane looked at the TV and smirked. I hadn’t been paying attention to what was on it, so I was mortified when I saw it was some old-timey, black-and-white movie.
“What are you watching?” He sat next to me on the couch. He handed me one of the sodas. I felt my stomach flip-flop.
I scooted over on the couch to make room for him, even though I wanted to be right up against him. “I don’t know.” I cracked open the soda. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
He watched the screen for a moment or two. A lady in a silky evening gown sang by a man playing on a piano. She was singing some lame, old-timey song. It was really dorky and weird.
Shane laughed, though. So I laughed too.
“Old movies are weird,” he said. He looked over at me with his big brown eyes that always seem to have a little bit of sadness in them. I wish I knew what he might be a little bit sad about. “What’s been going on with you lately?”
I was shocked by his question. I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds, so I kind of mumbled something about the upcoming science fair and a math test I’d had on Wednesday.
Then he said, “No, not with school. I meant like, withyou.” He took a sip of his soda. “How areyou?”
I did and didn’t know what to say all at once. Because if he really wanted to know how I was, right that second, then I’d have told him that I was happy. It was the truth. But I didn’t know if I could tell him that the reason I was happy was because he’d come upstairs, brought me a soda from the fridge, and sat next to me. All on his own. But other than right that moment, I wasn’t great. Most of my friends at school are only myfriendswhen they need help with homework. And I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone. Likereallytalk. At lunch at school, all anyone talks about is going to the mall,The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,and who like-likes who. None of it feels real to me, and it makes me feel like a weird, invisible freak.
I asked him what Ev was doing and he said that Ev fell asleep like a wuss. Then Shane looked at me and said—just like this: “Seriously, though. How’s…life and stuff?”
On the TV, the lady in the silky evening gown danced with a man. They danced like a waltz across the screen. I watched it for a minute or two before I asked Shane why he wanted to know.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Just curious.”
“About me?”
“Sure.”
I wondered what it would be like to hold his hand and talk about things with him. Anything. All things. So I told Shane about how in science class, we learned that some of the stars we see in the night sky might be already dead. We learned that it took thousands of light yearsfor that star’s light to get to us, but that it could already have collapsed and died in the meantime. And so, if that’s true, then our sun’s light is a star in the sky right now, but its light might not travel to other planets for millions of years and by then it’ll be gone, and Earth will be gone and so will we.
When I finished talking, Shane just stared at me, his eyebrows raised.
I felt a pain in my chest. Why did I blab those stupid things? Shane would have to think I’m crazy. But he blinked at me and nodded to the TV. He said, word-for-word, “It’s kind of like how that lady and the guy on the screen are probably dead now. But we’re just now seeing the movie they were in, like a million years later.”
I grinned in relief. “The 1940s weren’t a million years ago.”
“Sure as shit seems like it.” He laughed.
I laughed too.
We watched the movie for a few minutes, and I thought it was sad. The actor and the actress were once alive, being filmed, and now they’re gone. But their light remained.
I looked at Shane and he looked at me.
“It makes me sad,” I said. “That stars die.”
It’s what I’d thought in class. Then I went to my next one and to lunch and nobody seemed to care as much as I did, so I pretended that I didn’t. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to pretend in front of Shane.
“It is sad,” he agreed. “But at least those stars left us their light to enjoy. Right?”
“Right.”
He smiled at me, and I smiled back.
So, we watched the rest of the movie together, and it seemed he understood. It seemed he understood a little part of me no one else ever has.
