Balconial Conversations

Chapter 14: Gentlemen

I hug my knees feeling immature and irritated. High school boys are the absolute worst, humanity-wise. All they do is hoot and holler, disrupt the classroom and bully anyone they think is beneath them. Other times, they just look at you with the most probing, awful eyes for the entire day.

"I don't like boys." It’s a broad phrase I would typically abhor but feels appropriate. I can’t imagine trusting one, sharing things, having an intelligent conversation; present company excluded.

"Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Just last week I told a woman I would carry her groceries, then I didn't." Cam is in a better mood today watching origami tutorial videos and folding progressively less sloppy cranes on top of a heavy-looking textbook.

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"I also told my mom that her new haircut made her look younger; it doesn't."

"Cam." He looks up, and his expression softens from blasé to human. “And it’s not just that… I don’t know. I guess pretty much everyone in our generation says they have trust issues.”

“And the olds blame everything on the millennials,” he says grandly then continues soberly, “Sorry. Well, I agree with that, but I think that everyone finds a person or people who they can trust. Like, even the most trusting people don’t trust everyone.”

“I don’t know… and why are people so interested in emotionally unavailable people?”

“Yeah, that is strange. Like, sometimes you’re hiding behind emotional reservation then people are like ooh, I’ll get a peek behind the curtain and make them normal!” He flips down the wings of his seventh paper crane and suddenly tosses it across the gap. It lands on my pre-calculus binder. “But then,” he continues, “Sometimes it just looks like emotional reservation and girls are like, hell yeah. “

I force a smile and hold the paper crane; its edges are sharp, and folds are precise.

“I present you my first presentable paper crane!” He says, belatedly, and I desperately regret sharing.

***

"Hey, hey kitty Kat." Gabriel chases me down the hall as I make for the double doors, all floppy curls and dancing eyes. He’s wearing soccer cleats which I didn’t think we're supposed to be used indoors and the studs make clicking sounds against the linoleum.

I’m not sure if he does it to be annoying or not so I try to make my response slightly less snide than usual. "It's Katherine."

"Katherine," his lips caress the letters as if he's personally italicizing them. He smiles, quite bright and pure.

"Hi."

"Wanna come to this family thing at my house tonight? It's a dinner party. It'll be fun." Hmm. No, not really. But sort of. "I'd love to introduce you to my brother. He's cool." Indeed.

We stand in the middle of the hall, alone after the rest of the students have filtered by. I bite my bottom lip hard and he grins, hopefully.

"All right."

"All right." Bigger smile. "I'll write down the address. Do you want me to pick you up or..."

"I think I can get there on my own."

"Perfect."