Less Than Three

Chapter 37: Manners, Custom and Fashion

9:23 PM Went to the Windmill Days festival with Brady tonight. Saw Dave. Saw Madison. Everyone was "nice". Got a message: cheddarbob's home! I'm going to look for him now.

The List:

If you still need one then you haven't been reading carefully enough.

I found Craig online, but I was too paranoid to talk to him there. I asked him to call me, but that still wasn't good enough. I needed to see him. To be near him before I could judge if at least that one relationship was still true.

I sneaked out of my house and walked over to his. He was waiting for me on his wide front porch. We wandered through town, dodging Officer Sampson and his curfew-sniffing dog, until we got to the park. Craig climbed the ladder to the rusty old playground fort and I followed him up. We talked. Or rather, I talked. Craig listened. I was hoping he'd have some words of wisdom for me when I finished, but no. Or, to be more exact, not yet. He wanted to think the whole thing through first.

I ran out of words about the same time that the skies ran out of heat. Craig gathered me into his hoodie and we stayed like that until the sun rose.

Friday, July 4, 5:49 AM Term of the Day: De riguer- As prescribed by manners, custom or fashion

My relationship with c-bob is anything but de riguer. I <3 that kid.

What else could I say?

Not much. Not on the blog anyway. Not when Brady knew where to find it. If things were still secret I might have tippity-tap-typed about the de riguer-ity of things with Brady.

How, sure, we looked like a couple on the outside. How he held my hand. How he plied me with elephant ears. How he kissed me goodnight. But I also would have discussed the way I felt his anger every time he touched me. And how I hated that he didn't trust what was left of us enough to be real.

I say that as if I was actually being real myself.

I was not.

11:20 AM Today I'm going to Jacob's cousin's house. Brady wants to show me the race car. According to him and Jacob, it's a BIG DEAL. Sid's been doing great. He's winning races and he has a good shot at, um, whatever the next level is called. They're all twitter-pated about it.

And really, I was glad Brady was happy about something.

Later, we're meeting the whole gang for the Joust and fireworks.

Brady didn't want us to go at first but I pouted until he agreed. Then I went into the bathroom and stuck my tongue out at myself in the mirror.

I've been thinking more about that whole color theory thing. If pink has the power to pacify and green makes you feel serene, what about all of the other colors in the world? Does every color have a special power?

That might make a good topic to explore on Mom's website: How to Make Your Flower Garden More Meaningful.

Maybe I should have stayed home to work on it. Okay, for sure I should have. But once again, no.

Craig, Madison, Andrew and I were skating through the neighborhoods, on the way to meet Brady and Jacob at the fairgrounds, when Craig pulled me off my board. "I've been thinking about this thing with Dave," he started. "Maybe you should ..."

Like my dad likes to say: I was all ears. But then we turned the corner. And Dave was right there. And my ears worked in tandem with my other body organs to betray me.