A Short Trip

Here is a short story I've written over the last 2 days. It's roughly based off of a true story, but fiction.


There I was, standing on a corner waiting for Kirk to show up. "Can you see me? I'm out on the curb" I said into the phone. I was waiting for a boy I had a class with over a year ago. We had never really hung out, I’d always wanted to get to know him better and the magic of facebook had connected us again when I was looking for a ride down to Utah.
"Oh yeah I see you! --Click--" he said as a white Taurus sped up the suburban street. He jumped out of the car, not quite same Kirk I remembered, well everything but the beard. Where once was a clean shaven brunette boy with piercing blue eyes stood a man with dark ray bands a scruffy blonde brown beard and a stunning outfit. A blue and white checkered shirt, snug khaki shorts and a pair of flip flops. I stood there just staring at him. "You ready?"
"Oh yeah!" I said and grabbed my suit case. He held open the back door and I tossed it on the back seat. I popped up front and buckled in. I looked over at him. I was all set for an awkward half quiet half strained conversation car ride.
"Sorry I’m late"
"Oh no worries." silence ensued. 10 minutes later we got out of the winding Idaho suburbs and got onto the freeway. The air conditioner apparently was broken because the windows were down about halfway.
"So....What classes did you take last semester?" Kirk yelled over the sound of the wind whistling by. He had his hand out the window and was feeling the wind move along outside.
"Well I took astronomy, special education, reading and Hemingway and McCarthy with Professor Allen" I said referencing the teacher we had a class with the year previous.
"Oh how was that class? I really wanted to take it"
"It was really good. About half of the class asked stupid questions but Jeannette, Lindsey and I had a good time."
"Yeah Lindsey said she loved it."
"The best part was the field trip to Sun Valley"
"Oh man, so jealous! I wanted to take my own little vacation up there!"
"Yeah we went and saw the memorial and his grave and we went over to Ezra Pound’s house"
"Sweet I didn't know that was around there.”
“Yeah! You totally should’ve come!”
“Oddly enough they don’t let graduated senior just walk onto a bus and go on the field trip.”
“That is true.”
“I mean in a perfect world, a Kirk world, they would.” He said looking over at me with those hooded eyes, “Well in a perfect Kirk world I would walk down the street and people would be like HEY!!!! And I would just give them a curt little half wave” he said just raising his hand and nodding.
“Remind me never to go there” I said quietly to myself.
He chuckled. That was the first chuckle of the ride. I remember the way it reverberated in my ears. “Oh come on! It’ll be awesome.”
“Yeah for you, what about everyone else?”
“Eh, who really cares?”
“Wow Kirk, I would never have guessed how self absorbed you are!” I said coming out of my shell a little bit more.
“Hey what can I say? I’m awesome.”
I just laughed at him and shook my head. The minutes passed in a comfortable silence. Well, semi comfortable silence. It’s the kind of silence where you try and tell yourself that you are okay with it, but the fact remains you’re both still faking it. The silence lasted for about a half hour, till we pulled over to get gas. As I hopped out of the car and watched Kirk walk into the gas station I couldn’t help but check out his butt. He was just so….so….warm. He was different than the Kirk I remembered. The Kirk I remembered was quiet and semi shy. Well shy in the way that makes them seem so much superior than everyone else. Now he was making me laugh, coming out of his shell and forcing me out of my shell. I wanted to just wrap my arms around him and hold onto him forever.
Why was this happening? I had just gotten out of a crazy crush and here I was being sucked into another one? I gritted my teeth and decided this wasn’t going to happen. I was going to do everything in my power to prevent this. I walked into the gas station with my jaw firmly set and grabbed a bottle of Diet Mt Dew and some trail mix. Kirk got behind me in line with 2 bottles of Mt Dew and 2 cheese Danishes. “How much caffeine do you need?” I asked him hoping he hadn’t stayed up for the last 48 hours like I had.
“Hey! They’re two for three! Why wouldn’t I get it?”
“Some of us prefer not to fill our bodies with as many chemicals as possible.”
Kirk just chuckled and walked up to the counter. As we got back in the car Kirk had a slight half grin on his face. It disconcerted me simply because it drew me in so completely. “So any exciting plans for the break?” Kirk asked starting the car and putting his arm around my seat.
I glanced back at that arm and tried to act naturally.
“Uh, my parents want me to get a job at Kmart.”
“Oh wow…that sounds nice and uh…relaxing.”
“Yeah not really that pumped about it.”
“I wouldn’t think so. Then again, when I was home I was doing 40 hours of yard work and getting paid pretty much nothing.”
“Really yard work? I would never expect that from you.”
“I know I appear like a soft white boy, but my grandpa made me work hard.”
“You don’t appear that way, you are a white boy” I said looking over at that devilish grin.
“Hey now! Don’t go criticizing me!”
“You can’t get mad if it’s true!”
“Fine I guess” he said reaching over and ruffling my hair.
I glared out of the corner of my eye at him and smoothed out my hair. My plan wasn’t really going all that well. The conversation followed the flirtatious teasing pattern for another hour. “Hey do you mind if we stop in Logan for a little bit? I need to look for an apartment for next semester.”
“Yeah sure, I don’t really need to do anything. What are you doing next semester?”
“Oh I got into graduate school at Utah State!”“That’s pretty cool!”
“Yeah, I’m pretty stoked because I am teaching 2 sections of freshman English so it’s basically paying for itself.”
“That’s pretty sweet! Hey isn’t that the exit?”
“Oh yeah!” Kirk said and veered across the lane of traffic between him and the exit.
We walked amongst the dilapidated student housing buildings for awhile. We finally found something Kirk thought might work and we went to talk to the manager’s office. Kirk knocked on the door till a woman opened. “Hey miss, I was interested in renting an apartment for the coming fall.”
“Oh, alright, and who is this?”
Kirk looked back at me. “Oh umm, this is my girlfriend she wants to make sure I don’t live in too much of a dump” he said as he reached back and grabbed my hand.
“Oh yeah! The place he lived last year was just disgusting! I told him I’d have to break up with him if his apartment had another hole in the wall” I said playing along and putting my other hand over his. There went the attempt to resist him.
“Don’t worry darling these apartments are nice and clean!” the woman said taking to me instantly.
“Let’s hope so!” I stood and listened to Kirk and the woman discuss pricing and such. I clung to Kirk’s arm like a life preserver as we walked around the complex and inspected apartments.
After about a half hour Kirk decided to go look at one other apartment before he made up his mind. We walked away from the woman still hand in hand and he opened the door for me as we got in the car. As he got in on the other side he had a huge grin on his face. “Just so you know I’ve never lived in a place with holes in the walls!”
“Hey! I was improvising, besides I would never date anyone like you!”
“Sure you wouldn’t….” As we got out of the car at the next complex he grabbed my hand again. The apartment was worse, but way cheaper.
“Darling I think you should move here! You need to save as much money for the wedding as possible” I said hoping to throw Matt off his guard.
“Oh you two are getting married?” the woman who owned these apartments asked.
“Well yes, but not for 6 months!” Kirk said lifting my hand and kissing it.
“Where’s your ring?” she asked.
“Silly Kirkikens here hasn’t saved up enough for one. I just love him so much I don’t mind” I said snuggling into his shoulder.
“Well I only want the best for my corn muffin!” Kirk said looking me in the eyes with those sapphires.
“You two are so adorable! You’re definitely going to be together forever. I can tell these kinds of things” the woman said and grabbed our clasped hands. She appeared close to tears.
“Well then this is the place for me” Kirk said smiling from ear to ear.
“Oh honey! You will always be able to come to me! My sister is a florist so she can help with your flowers. I hope you won’t be living too far away!”
“Actually I’m going to be living up in Rexburg for the semester” I said frowning and kissing Kirk on the cheek. He glanced down at me, he apparently wasn’t expecting that. He looked at me for a quick second as if I were crazy but quickly changed it to a puppy dog face.
“Oh darling! Why?!? You should be down here with your man! A man as strong and smart as Kirk here will get swept up real quick by another girl!”
“No, my heart belongs to her” he said as he rested his forehead on the top of my head. I could hardly breathe because he smelled so amazing. The hot Utah air was just accentuating the warmth I felt next to him. It wasn’t uncomfortable warmth, though the temperature was near 95, it was one of those heats that feel good with every drop of sweat on your forehead and the small of your back.
Kirk signed a few papers and we got back in the car to head to the road. “So….uhhhh….so about that” Kirk said looking over a little sheepishly. He had a playful glint in his eye, but I could tell he wasn’t sure how to breach the subject.
I looked over at him. “What do you mean?”
“We’re not really going out, or engaged for that matter.”
“Well duh! It was just a little fun. Wasn’t it?” I said biting my lip and starring forward. I was kind of hoping that he would say it wasn’t just fun, that it was something more. But I wasn’t going to let him catch me off guard.
“Well yeah, you just startled me with that kiss on the cheek and the whole engagement thing” he said folding his lips in and keeping his eyes forward.
“Oh I’m sorry, just figured you deserved it because you just grabbed my hand in the first place!”
“True, I guess I did deserve a little jump.”
“I loved giving your little suburban white boy heart a jump.”
“Oh thanks!” he said laughing and turning to me. We had passed the awkward part. As the miles flew past and the conversation grew deeper and deeper Kirk slowly put his arm around my seat. He kept it there, but slowly began to play with my hair where it rested on the seat. We discussed books, movies, what we wanted most out of life and more of what made us who we are.
“What are you most afraid of?” he asked looking over at me. The more we drove and the more we talked, the more his eyes were on me rather than the road. I was too wrapped up in those blue eyes to worry about our safety.
“Being alone. You?” I said as nonchalantly as possible. I have a strange habit of being brutally honest with people when they don’t expect it.
“Really? You’re afraid of being alone? So you can’t be in a room alone?”
“No, I’m scared of spending the rest of my life alone. And you never said what you’re afraid of.”
Kirk sat and looked at the road for a minute. “Well I guess it’s the same. I’ve always counted my biggest fear as never really connecting to people. Sometimes I just push people away, I don’t know why, but nobody has really stuck around long.”
“Guess we’re not so different.”
“You thought we were different?”
“Well yeah, you’re so much smarter and popular than me.”
“Okay, I don’t know who you’re talking about but that’s clearly not me.”
“Whatever, when we had that class together you were always too cool to talk to me” I said staring out my window trying not to show him how much I wished he had talked to me.
“Really? I thought you were too cool to talk to me. You’re hilarious, you’re extremely smart and you just…you were…you.”
“Most people don’t like that about me.”
“No, they’re just jealous that they can’t be like that.”
“Oh this is my exit” I said trying to take the focus off of me.
“Okay” Kirk said pulling off the freeway with a sad look in his eyes.
“Turn left here. And that’s my house on the right” I gave curt directions. I had let my guard down, but it wasn’t going to change anything.
“Okay here you are” Kirk said as he pulled over and opened his door.
I unbuckled and opened the door and put my foot on the curb. If I had my choice I would stay in that car forever. “So I guess this is goodbye…”“Yeah,” Kirk said pulling out my suitcase from the trunk, setting it on the curb and then leaned up against the car.
“So, well good luck at school” I said walking and stopping just short of entering his personal space.
“Thanks, you too. I know that graduating is stressful but you can do it” he said standing up straight. Our faces were just inches from each other. A space that could be breached in a mere second.
I looked him in the eyes and bit my lip. “Thanks, you’ll do great at grad school. Don’t be too mean to those freshmen.”
“Oh I won’t, don’t worry.” He looked from my eyes to my lips and back again. Then he leaned in. Just a little bit. I closed the gap.
We shared a kiss that can only be described as tragic. Both of us knew there was nothing beyond this kiss, nothing that could ever happen, but neither of us was going to leave that sidewalk till that urge had been fulfilled. I slowly laced my fingers around the back of his neck and tugged at the hair on the back of his head. I had wanted to do that the whole ride down. Slowly he pulled away. He rested his forehead against mine and we just took a couple of breaths together.
“Well…I guess this is goodbye” I said and looked up into his eyes.
“Yeah, bye” he whispered and pulled me into a hug.
I held onto him for a minute or so and then pushed away. I knew if I let it go any longer than that I would never let go. I closed my eyes, sucked in my lips, grabbed my suitcase and headed into my parents house. I opened the door and shut it behind me. I sat down on the loveseat in the giant bay window. I looked out through the curtains. Kirk was sitting in the car. He had both hands on the wheel, but the car wasn’t even on. I could tell he was clenching his teeth even from that far away.
I thought about going out to say something, but I didn’t know what to say. There really wasn’t anything I could say. Nothing would change the way things were. I just continued to look out the window. A few minutes later he turned on the car and drove away. He didn’t even look back. I pulled the curtains shut. Stood up. And wheeled my suitcase to my room.