What Happened That Night

11 ~ a n y w h e r e

It had been almost two weeks since Griffin texted me that night and snuck over fence aligning my backyard and kissed me, the rain drizzling on our shoulders and the motion light emanating brightly from underneath the roof extending over a portion of our back deck with our lawn furniture catching droplets of rain behind us and casting our shadows, two bodies pressed so close that the darkness of our shadows blended together, against the blades of wet, late summer grass. And it had been about a week and a half since I saw him standing in front of his locker with that girl, with the red hair and dazed expression, arguing, and in that week and a half, I kept trying to think of reasons why he was and I kept trying to think of reasons why he never called or texted me or tried to find me at my locker like I did. But the pieces never seemed to fit and the ones that did were ones that I didn't want to fit, the picture darkening and twisting into something else when I wanted it to remain just me and Griffin, in my backyard, in the rain, and our lips meeting.

It wasn't until I was at Scoops! sitting behind the counter, slouching in a lukewarm metal chair that made awkward, suctioning noises whenever I moved my thighs, with an old, dog-eared copy of Seventeen magazine spread across my lap, reading one of the embarrassing stories in the back about a girl who ruined her date with her crush because a lactose intolerance induced fart, with my legs spread out and my flip-flop clad feet dangling off of one of the rungs of our Speaker Chair-as Bex referred to it-where the tinny speakers were muffling "She's in Love" from The Little Mermaid, and one of side of the chair, I had rubber-banded a small, mechanical fan with neon green, foam blades and aimed it in my direction, that I saw Griffin Tomlin again.

The air felt hot and sticky in the ice cream parlor that day, even though it was supposed to be October, that day was hot. The buzzing murmur of mechanical fans sounded again, after we managed to go about two weeks in a quiet, fan-free store, and when I wasn't reading the articles in Seventeen, I was fanning myself with the copy, which started to annoy Bex after I dislodged one of the pages and it fell to the floor and swept underneath the counter, lying next to pink hair scrunchie Bex didn't remember losing. I was wearing a turquoise tank top and a pair of pale pink shorts and my black flip flops, my hair braided and laying thick against my back, where I was almost certain a sweat stain was beginning to bleed through the material of my shirt. I was reading about the sixteen year old girl who was too afraid to tell her crush, Adam, that ice cream dates weren't really her thing, and using my free hand to play around with the diamond stud in my left ear, listening to Ariel's sisters singing about pounding hearts and ringing bells and Bex explaining to a somewhat disgruntled costumer we did not serve frozen yogurt here, when he came in through the door, a little dark golden bell ringing above his head as he ambled into the parlor, flip-flops smacking against the white and fuchsia checkered tiles, and I glanced up, still twisting the stud in my ear and biting down on my lip-something Bex noticed I did whenever I was reading-and then the sound of my heart beating in my ears began to drown out the mermaids and Bex and the huffs of the heavyset woman in a sundress, demanding frozen yogurt.

I just blinked as I watched him wander into the parlor, his keys jangling together as he tossed them up in the air and caught them, and Kolby Rutledge followed in behind him, glancing up at the bell dangling over the door frame as he entered the parlor, and Griffin's ocean blue eyes glanced around the room, taking in the fuchsia tiles and the red booths with cracks extending along the vinyl like a spider web in a corner of a room, and the artwork that the owner's daughter painted, hanging against the bright green wallpapered walls. He was slipping his keys into the pocket of his cargo shorts when he looked up, beyond the woman who was insisting that since the parlor wasn't named Scoops of Ice Cream! that it must mean that they should serve some kind of frozen yogurt here, and noticed me, behind the counter, twisting my diamond stud and nibbling on my lower lip, and I instantly cursed my decision not to wear make-up that morning. He tilted his head to the side, almost teasingly, and his black curls bounced slightly as he did, and I wasn't sure whether or not I thought this was cute or annoying. He looked over his shoulder, at Kolby, who was eyeing one of the paintings on the wall, of a pink elephant wearing sunglasses and drinking a purple smoothie while a giraffe and a turtle, clad in a tux and a red low-cut dress, appeared to salsa dance in the background-none of the owner's daughter's paintings seemed logical, and all seemed to involve animals standing upright and wearing clothing-and then Griffin turned to look back in my direction and smiled. A small, crooked smile.