Better Than Words

Summer

Luke Hemmings was a punk. Literally.

He wore tight jeans and flannels over angsty band t-shirts from before his time. He was tall and thin and had light colored eyes that were blue when he was happy and green when he was angry. His dirty blonde hair stuck straight up and out in every direction, and occasionally he would hide it under a hat when he got lazy. He had a lip piercing he liked to mess around with when he was bored. He was in a band that practiced in their other guitarist's garage back home in Australia. He was visiting for the summer and hated the severe lack of anything entertaining to do in our town.

He came into my store one day in July and asked if we had flannel shirts. I told him we didn't have many yet because they were out of season, but they would be in soon. He said okay, turned around, and just walked out the front doors.

Luke came in every day after that for a week.

He asked for something different every time, but they were things anyone else would already have known we didn't carry. Hair products, ripped jeans, lip rings, and every once in a while, he would ask again if we had flannel shirts yet. The answer was always no. He would stick around for a while, browsing through the racks and wrinkling his nose at the collared polo shirts and cargo shorts. Then he would leave again without a word.

After that week, he came to the register with something in his hands. It was a pair of striped socks. Nothing else, just the socks. He kept his eyes on mine as I rang him up.

"Is that all for you today?" I smiled cordially at him.

"Actually, there is something," he said quietly. "Where's the nearest cinema?"

"Movies? At the mall on Shaw, it's three or four streets south of here."

"Wonderful," he smiled. "Meet me there at 7." He then walked out the door the same way he did every other day.

For the rest of my shift I was baffled at his proposal. Well, less of a proposal, more like a demand, really. I kept asking myself if I really would go... I barely even knew him.

As I drove home I was still comtemplating. Well, I thought to myself, I have to go to the store anyway... Might just stop by for a moment. I pulled into my driveway and walked into my house, giving a distracted recap of my shift to my parents as I headed to my room. As I straightened up my room I still wrestled with the idea of going. Before I realized it, I was out of my work clothes and into an outfit entirely inappropriate for just going to Target.

"Heading to the store, maybe a movie, I'll be back later," I said offhandedly to my dad on the couch.

"Well hey, wait a second, kid. Why in such a hurry?" He muted the TV to be able to hear me better.

"I'm not, I just have to go to the store for a thing."

"Are you on your period?" he asked so quickly and quietly that his words ran together. He was always weird asking me about my period.

"No, I just wanted to pick up some stuff. I think I'm short on dry shampoo and there's a new CD I want to check out," I told him.

"What about the movie, are you gonna meet someone there?" He reached over into the bag of chips next to him and crunched loudly.

"Eh, maybe," I shrugged, trying to play it off.

"With the girls, or what?" Geez, what was with the interrogation?

"No, someone from work asked me if I wanted to see a movie, so we might go do that. But I don't know."

"Like a date?" He would always try to make it seem like my dating life wasn't a big deal to him, but he couldn't hide the way he perked up at the possibility of me having a "date." Beyond annoying.