The Space Between Us(5)

"Charlie, his flight might have been delayed. Or maybe, his parents want  to spend an evening with him. After all, they haven't seen him all  summer either."

"Dad, I'm just drawing. If he calls, he calls," I said as I shrugged my  shoulders. It was the least convincing thing I'd ever said, but my dad  did a great job of nodding and walking to the other room. The phone  suddenly rang and I jumped.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Charlie. Wanna go to the mall?" I rolled my eyes so hard I was sure I was going to lose one in the back of my skull.

"No, Reeve. I don't want to go to the mall. Go ahead without me."

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, just drawing."

"Well then, come with me. I need someone to talk to while I guy-watch in the food court."

"No thanks. I'm in the middle of this drawing and I really want to finish."

"Oh fine. If you change your mind, I'll be at the food court."

"Ok," I said, knowing I wasn't going to change my mind. "Have fun." I  hung up the phone and returned to my pad of paper that had the worst  drawing I had done since grade school. I was distracted and nothing was  flowing from me. It was just a big jumbled mess of lines. The phone rang  again and I rolled my eyes.

"I haven't changed my mind. I don't want to go anywhere," I said, exasperated.

"Oh, that's too bad," I heard a voice say on the other side that  definitely wasn't Reeve. "I was hoping I could see you for a little  while tonight." My darned heart was doing that  beat-so-fast-it-might-pop-out thing again.

"Asher?"

"Yeah, it's me. Were you expecting your other best friend to return from a summer away today?"

"No," I said. His voice sounded different - deeper. Maybe it's just the  phone. He'll probably sound the same in person. "I just wasn't sure if  you were going to spend the evening with your parents or not. I'm sure  they've missed you."

"Yeah, but I can squeeze you in," he said, making me smile. "Meet me outside?"

"Now?"

"Do you want to wait any longer?"

I shook my head.

"Charlie?"

"No!" I almost shouted once I realized he couldn't hear me shaking my head. He laughed.

"Ok, I'll meet you out there."

I tried not to run to the door to put on my shoes, but I was definitely walking fast. My dad saw me dashing down the hallway.

"Did he call?" He shouted from his office.

"Yup!" I shouted back.

"Be home for dinner!"

"Ok!"

I reached the door and stopped at the mirror hanging in the entry way. I  studied my face, making sure, for a reason new to me, that I looked ok.  What did 'ok' look like? Was my hair crazy? No. Did I have anything on  my face? No. I guess this was as good as it was going to get. I shook my  head at myself; I never cared before what I looked like when I saw  Asher.

I opened the door to the warm summer air. The sun was beginning to set,  but still pretty high. Orange and red streaks were ribbons in the sky. I  had another hour or so before dinner. I turned right at the sidewalk  and absolutely could not help the enormous smile that spread across my  face as I saw him walking towards me. I also couldn't help it when my  feet started moving faster and faster until I was running towards him.  He was running towards me as well and when we finally made it to each  other, I jumped up into his arms and he swung me around. We spun for  what seemed like hours. His nose was pressed into my hair and my face  was snuggled into the crook of his neck. I didn't remember him ever  smelling good, but he did. He smelled different.

When he finally put me down, we each spent a few moments unabashedly  looking each other over. I saw him eyeing me, but didn't care because I  was eyeing him. He was huge. He was big. He was perfect.                       
       
           



       

"You grew," were the first words out of my mouth.

"You didn't," he responded. He was right. I hadn't grown one smidge over the summer  –  in height anyway.

"No, seriously. You must be at least a foot taller than you were when  you left." I went to stand next to him to gauge how much taller he'd  gotten. I remembered before he left when we walked side-by-side if I  looked over at him I was looking at his shoulder. Now I turned my head  and I was looking at his chest. Even his chest looked bigger. "What did  they feed you on that farm?" He laughed.

"You look different too, but you're still so small," he said. I shrugged.

"It's a curse."

"No, it's ok. I like you small. You're like those cartoons we use to watch back in fifth grade. What was it called?"

"We watched a lot of cartoons, Asher."

"It was on Nickelodeon and it was about those little people who lived in the forest." I scrunched up my eyebrows, thinking hard.

"You mean The Littl' Bits?"

"Yeah! That's them. They were tiny too, just like you. You're my little bit."

I felt the blood immediately rush to my face as I started blushing. I  looked down at the ground to try and hide the crimson shade of my cheeks  and the ridiculous smile I wore.

"Do you have some time? Can we go for a walk?"

"Yeah, I have to be back for dinner, so I've got about an hour." We  started walking, with no real destination, and ended up back at our  elementary school. We both took seats on a swing and just sat and  talked. He told me about his summer on the farm and how his grandpa  taught him how to drive on his old truck. He told me about how they took  some cows "out to pasture", whatever that meant, and that they had to  sleep in a tent for a few nights. He heard coyotes howling close to this  tent and was really scared, but too afraid to say anything to his  grandpa because he wanted to seem like a grown up. I told him I would  have peed my pants if I heard a coyote outside my tent. He laughed.

"So, Bit," he said with a smile. I shook my head at his new nickname for  me, pretending to be annoyed by it. "Did you and Reeve meet any cute  boys at the mall?" I looked up at him when he asked the question, but  his gaze was on the ground, his feet digging small holes in the bark  dust. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Not really. Whenever Reeve would engage any of them in conversation I would just nod at them and smile. It was really boring."

"Good." He said. I couldn't look him in the eye.

"Did you meet any cute girls on the farm?"

"Well," he started. "There was this one girl. She was just there for the  summer too. I spent a lot of time with her and we became really good  friends."

"Oh," was all I could say as my heart fell all the way into my shoes.

"She had really pretty brown hair and a big black spot over her left  eye." I looked up at him curiously. "Her name was Cupcake," he said,  smiling again. I smacked him, an involuntary movement that I had no idea  was occurring until it was over. "She was my horse," he said through  the laughter that trilled out of him. I was too angry at him for his  joke to notice how beautiful his laugh was, almost.

"Your horse?"

"Yup, she was pretty great. Best friend a guy could have on a farm."

"So you didn't meet any cute human girls?" This time he shrugged.

"There were a few girls who came around, mostly the daughters of the  other farmhands. They weren't anything special. Besides, any time they  tried to talk to me, somehow the conversation always came back to my  best friend who was back home." I didn't try to hide my smile that time.  I wore it proudly.

"Come on, Asher. It's time to go home."





Chapter Three

It was the first day of high school. Reeve and I stood at our very first  locker which we were sharing. Something about having a locker was so  cool. I was nervous about my first day, but I felt a little better  because Reeve was so excited and confident.

At this point in our development, Reeve and I were pretty opposite. Her  boobs came in during eighth grade and she was very proud of them. Her  boobs got bigger, her waist got smaller, legs longer, and skin tanner.  It was hard not to notice her or notice all the boys noticing her.  Sometimes it was a little intimidating being next to her walking down  the halls, but most of the time I didn't mind because it meant no one  was looking at me. She wore clothes that accentuated her newly formed  body and she liked that other people admired what she worked so hard to  show off.

"Hey, Bit," I heard Asher's voice behind me. I turned around and rolled my eyes at him.                       
       
           



       

"Is this nickname going to stick?" I asked, trying to sound exasperated.