The test ended, and the kids our age started to leave. Mainly seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, from what I could tell. Three hours of reading black scribbles on white paper had taken a toll on my already subpar eyesight. As I walked to the rehab room with Liza, I found myself tripping over my own damn feet.
"You good there?" she asked me, grabbing my hand when I tripped on myself and began to fall forward.
I regained my balance and turned to her. "You saved me, again."
She pulled her hand from mine, feigning offense. "Don't be such as a baby, 'again,' you know I've never saved you for real."
"I guess not." I stuck my tongue out at her, up until the point where she smacked my arm, a devious look on her usually gentle face.
"Anyway, how do you think you did? Got a passing grade?"
"Doubt it." For just a moment, I bit my lip nervously. Then I remember how futile the future would be for me anyhow, and my anxiety melted away.
We entered the rehab room and glanced up at the mechanical clock on the wall, the hands of which turned to 10 AM.
"Mom's supposed to get here soon," she muttered.
The researchers ignored us. The sexy woman from earlier was even playing with a chihuahua a few aisles down from the door. Leaned against the wall by that door, near a few squawking birds, I watched the brown-haired woman on her knees with the crate door opened. She held a squeaky toy, and the short-haired pup gnawed on it while letting out cute growls.
"What are you looking at?" Liza asked me, following my eyes until hers caught sight of the researcher playing with the chihuahua. Looking back and forth from the woman to me, Liza eventually grinned and crossed her arms in a less-than-serious but still-judging manner. "You think she's hot, don't you?"
Jarred by the accusation, I shook my head. "Never."
"Never? Okay, then." Her lips pursed at me, one thick eyebrow quirked up while her gaze flickered in a hardly subtle gesture back at the woman in the lab coat and plaid skirt. "I'm just saying, if I was gay, I'd be down."
A quiet groan escaped me. "You're exhausting sometimes, Liza. Just let me admire her in peace."
"I can't believe it: Kevin Martinez wants to do something 'in peace.'"
My face burned, but relief came quickly when one bird beside me began to have a seizure, which brought over a bunch of the researchers and prompted me and Liza to go back out into the hallway. From there, we walked to the front doors of the school and contemplated stepping outside.
"I wish phones still worked," Liza grumbled, trying to see through the small window on the front door. She wasn't quite tall enough for her eyes to reach the glass, even when she stood on the tips of her toes. "This stupid Cloud messed with the fucking satellites."
My eyes widened. "You swear now?"
She blushed, one hand on her hip. Her button-up blouse was a shade of purple, likely coordinated to match her eye shadow, and it highlighted her figure nicely. I would be lying if I ever said I didn't have a 'crush' on her.
"I like to speak all sweetly when I'm first interacting with someone new, or who I haven't seen in a while," she explained, giggling, "then I bust out the ol' F-bomb. It's my favorite hobby, saying what used to get my ass whooped."
My lips twisted into an amused grin. "Our parents are exact opposites like that. Well, your mom and my dad. I can't say my absentee mother would have wanted me swearing around the house."
"For real, though. Your dad likes video games while my mom's on the PTA. You can't get more opposite than that, you know?"
"Part of me wishes they were somehow compatible, so we could live close to each other again."
"My mom didn't move away because of your dad. She just wanted to leave the memory of mine."
I frowned at the reminder of her dead patriarch. "True."
She raised a golden eyebrow at me. "Kev?"
"Hm?"
"Have you heard from your mom since she upped and left y'all?"
I shook my head. While I hadn't been truthful with Liza about my feelings toward her, I found sharing my negative feelings about my mother rather easy. Besides, doing so gave me a chance to have a deep conversation with my best friend without any chance of my attraction toward her slipping out into the open. "My mom's long gone. Not dead, I don't think, but she would rather live with her dementia-having-ass dad than watch me grow up into an adult ..."
That seemed to bring an end to her attempts to see through the glass. "Can't see my mom's car from here, but it's like fall out there." She brushed her hands over her exposed arms. "I left my jacket in the car! I won't last long outside."
"Here." I took my jacket off and handed it to her, exposing my muscular arms. Since my hair often gave off an effeminate impression, at some point in my junior year I had decided to bulk up. But at this point, any often necessary jacket or hoodie hid that progress.
Liza's cheeks reddened deeply at the sight of my biceps, and at my jacket which she now held in her pale hands. "Um, thanks." She hurried to put on the jacket, then zipped it up quickly. "Guess I'm ready to go outside now, but you?"
"I'll live," I assured her with a wink. Her red cheeks stirred my heart. "Let's go see if she's here. If she isn't, well, my dad's probably here. We can wait in his car until she arrives."
"That works." Dark blush fading, she glanced back into the hallway, her dark eyes searching for student life. "Looks like everyone else is gone … Fine. Let's check."
Together, we exited the building. Outside on the cold black day, we gazed over the yellowish glowing parking lot. A strong breeze blew; I noticed that Liza's pug nose took on a reddish hue as the wind whipped us remorselessly. While I recognized her primarily by her soft voice, since we couldn't always see each other while hanging out, I appreciated the sight of her. She had told me in our freshmen year that she had a Black great grandmother on her dad's side, and that's where she got her dark eyes and thick hair. Her father had died on the job year back—he worked as a long-distance trucker—and she had also inherited his adventurous nature.
As much as I'm sure her mom hated it, Liza wasn't meant to stay where we grew up. Not the city, the county, the state, maybe not the U.S.? I could see her taking a train down to Mexico, or escaping north to Canada. Hell, maybe one day she would steal a boat and sail off to Bermuda, Japan, Greenland, Australia … Anywhere but here.
Her mom's car was nowhere to be found, and Liza's face drooped in distress. My chest ached for her. She had inherited a burdensome sense of responsibility to her family from her mother. That "blood is thicker than water" mentality worried me whenever I thought about her becoming an adult and having a career. It wouldn't be her own, is what scared me. I didn't want to see her growing into a life she would regret.
"Cold out here …" I shivered, crossing my arms.
"You shouldn't have given me your jacket. Now I feel guilty for wearing it."
The door slammed shut behind us.
I spun back at it. "Shoot, that was loud."
Putting her hands up around her eyes, Liza scanned the lot. She looked up the road as far as the street lights would allow, over a small hill to the main street, which continued for less than a mile before disappearing into the shadows. "Hm, she might have parked around the side."
"Who does that?"
"I don't know …"
"It's pitch-black over there." I took her hand and turned her around to the front door. Liza went ahead to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Are we locked out?"
Puzzled, she took a step back.
"Let me try …" I attempted to open the door too. When that failed, we walked a few yards to the rehab room and looked in through the window. We couldn't see through it, since the glass was that thick kind that warps whatever is behind it, but the lights inside were still on. "Someone has to realize we're stuck out here," I said, then banged on the glass, trying to get the researchers' attention. Yet, no one came to our aid. Based on the smudges of color I could make out on the inside, no one even approached the window.
"Damn it." Liza kicked the wall, not hard enough to hurt herself. "It's getting colder. Can you feel it?" She sent me a look of frustration.
"Sure, I can."
We waited for a while longer out front. The temperature dropped maybe ten degrees.
"I feel sick," I said, placing my hand on my stomach. "I don't like being outside during the day."
She looked at me with her dark, gentle eyes. Her concern gifted me with a sense of warmth. "We're not old or young enough to get Selene-Corpus sickness. You don't think that's it, do you?"
I shook my head. "It's been a while since I've eaten, Liza." Letting out a heavy sigh, I decided now was better than never to do something different. "Okay, let's check around the side. Your mom and my dad might have parked over there, to chat up."
"I hope they did." She took a step closer to me, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. With her permission, I draped an arm over her shoulders.
Feeling slightly more optimistic than fearful, since anything could be lurking where no light can be found, I laughed. "Maybe this place isn't that abandoned, and we can get inside through another door."
"Sure," she said sarcastically, "and maybe we'll find a vending machine and a running drinking fountain?"
We quickened our pace in an unspoken agreement: the less time we spent out from under the lights of the school and its parking lot, the safer we were.