Week Six: excerpt of chapter two

At 12:18 tomorrow morning

                  you said you’d parked outside

                                    my window.

I followed you out,

                  picking my way down the tree

                                    wondering why.

We drove aimlessly

                  just sort of…

                                    being.

You’re very good at this

                  { just being, I mean. }

                                    Maybe we could do it

                                                      again sometime.

“Where do you wanna go?” Mark said just outside of town, one hand resting on the windowsill of the car door and the wheel held lightly between the fingers of his other hand.

Alex shrugged as well he could while lying on an angle. “I’m not fussed.”

Mark smiled, crossing his hands over on the wheel as he went around a roundabout a few times, trying to decide where he wanted to go. Before Alex got dizzy, Mark took an exit and kept driving.

Alex decided not to ask, just kept watching Mark and thinking about the past month that he’d been back in the country. He frowned.

“Hey Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“You ever think about how easy it is?”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Mark smiled softly, checking his blind spot before making a turn.

“Yeah. I thought we’d have grown apart at first.”

Alex only hummed in response, leaving the rest of it unsaid. They fell into comfortable silence, Alex letting his eyes fall shut until he felt Mark pull into a car park. He brushed a hand lightly over Alex’s cheek.

“We’re here.”

Alex unbuckled his belt and got out, hesitating before slamming the door shut. “Why are we at the beach?”

Mark shrugged over the other side of the car. “Felt like it.”

Alex thought they might be over the other side of the estuary, but he wasn’t sure because he didn’t know the area as well as he probably should. There was a grassy bank that stretched for a few metres before dropping off into the sand. To their left was a small playground, deserted so late at night.

Mark slipped off his shoes and tucked his socks into them, then pulling his shirt over his head and placing the garments on the hood of his car. Under the street lights, Alex recognised it as the old, dark green Volvo Mark’s parents had driven them around in as children. Alex chuckled as he pulled his hoody off.

“This thing still have the backwards seats in it?”

Mark looked back at the car and smiled. “Yeah.”

They had always begged Mark’s mum to let them sit in the boot of the car, which lifted up to make two extra seats that faced backwards out of the boot. The car was so old you had to insert the CDs into a box in the boot, so they were disc jockeys whenever they travelled in the Volvo, waving to the people driving behind them.

Alex took off his shoes and put his things next to Mark’s, following him down the beach to where the tide lapped at their toes. It was cold, but the stifling heat of the night air had Alex sinking into the water easily. He tried not to think about how unpleasant the ride back to his house would be with his shorts damp on his skin, instead focusing on flipping onto his back to float, looking up at the stars and the darkness between them.

Mark waded up to his side, sinking up to his chest and lifting a hand to drip salt water onto Alex’s torso. Alex just shut his eyes and tried not to tense at the way it tickled.

After they got bored of swimming Mark suggested they dry off on the swings.

“I don’t wanna stain the upholstery.”

They argued for a while about who would sit in the baby swing, Mark winning in the end because he was taller. Alex couldn’t fit his thighs between the leg holes so he perched on top of the back of it, the rubber digging into his flesh uncomfortably. His toes didn’t quite reach the bark beneath him, so he settled for swinging his legs back and forth as Mark pushed himself off the ground a little.

“We should get something to eat.”

Alex hummed, looking down at the ground. “There a McDonald’s near here?”

“I think so. How dry are you?”

Mark reached out to feel the hem of Alex’s shorts, his fingers grazing the skin of his knee cap a little and making him flinch. Mark withdrew his hand quickly and stood up. “Come on, I’m getting cold.”

Alex had forgotten his wallet, so Mark bought them a couple of burgers and drinks, plus a twenty pack of chicken nuggets to share. They pulled up in a car park near Carlos’ (and now Mark’s) house, where they could see the lights from the school over the hill.

“How do you feel about going back to school?” Alex asked with a mouth full of chicken nugget and sweet and sour sauce, only thinking to cover it halfway through his sentence.

Mark hummed, putting his burger down in his lap. “Gonna be weird. When do we start?”

“Early Feb.”

He grimaced, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ve got ages, let me enjoy my youth for a bit.”

Alex huffed a laugh. “You’re seventeen.”

He turned to Alex, sticking a finger in his chest. “Yeah, and you’re only sixteen. You’ve got more time, I’m running out.”

Alex laughed. “Sure, whatever grandpa.”

Mark finished off the last of his burger and folded up the wrapper neatly. “You wanna crash here?” he nodded up the street to Carlos’s house.

Alex knew it was a long way to his own home, and he knew that Mark was probably only asking so he wouldn’t have to make the drive.

“I would, but my parents.”

Mark nodded, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Yeah, I get you.”

The ride back was mostly in silence, both of them happy to just spend time with each other. Mark dropped Alex off at the gate, waiting for him to disappear over the hill of the driveway before turning around and driving back home. Alex kicked gravel around as he walked back down to his house, one of the cats meeting him halfway in the dark and following him the rest of the way.