Point of Retreat

Layken yet?" He’s shoving an extra pair of pants into his bag.
     
    "Almost," I say, eyeing his overnight bag. "You and Vaughn seem to be hitting it off pretty well."
     
    He grins at me and walks backwards out the door. "Like I said, I've got skills."
     
    I sit there on the couch and ponder my situation. I've got an old best friend who's dating the girl I spent two years of my life with. My new best friend is freaking out about becoming a dad. My girlfriend isn't speaking to me. I've got class in the morning with the very reason my girlfriend isn't speaking to me. My parallel eleven-year-old neighbor gives better advice than I do. I'm feeling a tad bit defeated right now. I lie down on the couch and try to think of something going right in my life. Anything.
     
    Kel and Caulder walk into the living room and sit on the other couch.
     
    "You with wrong what's?" Kel says backwards.
     
    "Wrong not what's?" I sigh.
     
    "I'm too tired to talk backwards," Caulder says. "I'm just gonna talk frontwards. Will…can you come to school next Thursday and sit with me at lunch? It's supposed to be Dad day, but Dad's dead so that leaves you."
     
    I close my eyes. I hate that he's so casual about not having a Dad now. Or maybe I'm glad he's so casual about it. Either way, I hate it for him. "Sure. Just let me know what time I need to be there."
     
    "Eleven," he says as he stands up. "I'm going to bed now. See ya later, Kel."
     
    Caulder walks toward his bedroom and Kel stands up. I watch him as he crosses the living room. He looks just as defeated as I do right now as he heads toward the front door. When the door closes behind him, I slap myself in the forehead. You're such an idiot, Will!
     
    I jump off the couch and follow Kel outside. "Kel!" I yell when I open the front door. He turns around in the street and starts walking toward me. We meet in my front yard.
     
    "What about you?" I say. "Can I have lunch with you, too?"
     
    Kel tries to suppress a smile, just like his sister. He shrugs. "If you want to," he says.
     
    I ruffle his hair. "I'd be honored," I say.
     
    "Thanks, Will." He turns and walks back to his house. As I watch him close his front door behind him, it occurs to me that if things don’t work out between Lake and I, it's not just her I'm afraid of losing.
     
    ***
     
     
     
     
     
    I'm not sure how today is going to go. When I get to my first class, all I can do is wait. I'm hoping she doesn’t sit by me. Surely she knows that much. Most of the students arrive and the professor finally walks in and hands out the tests. It's ten minutes after the start of class and Vaughn still hasn't shown up. I finally let out a sigh of relief and begin to focus on the lecture when she bursts through the door. She never has been much for subtlety. Of course, after she grabs her test, she comes straight up the stairs and sits right next to me. Of course she does.
     
    "Hey," she whispers. She's smiling. She looks happy. I'm hoping it has everything to do with Reece and nothing to do with me.
     
    She rolls her eyes. "Don't worry. This is the last day I'm sitting by you," she says.
     
    I guess she could see the disappointment clearly written across my face when she walked up.
     
    "I just wanted to say I was sorry about last week. I also wanted to say thanks for being so cool about Reece and I dating again." She picks her bag up from the table and starts sifting through it, then takes out a pen.
     
    "Again?" I whisper.
     
    "Yeah. I mean, I thought you'd be pissed that we started dating right after you and I broke up last time. Before he left for the military? Actually, it kind of upset me that it didn't piss you off," she says with a strange look in her eyes. "Anyway, we decided to give it another shot. But that’s all I wanted to say."
     
    She turns her attention to the test in front of her.
     
    Again? I want to ask her to repeat everything she just said, but that would mean I was inviting conversation, so I don't. But again ? And I could swear she just said they dated before he left for the military. Reece left for the military two months after my parents died. If he and Vaughn dated before that…that only means one thing…he was dating her right after she broke my heart. He was dating her? The entire time I was venting to him about her, he was dating her? What a jackass. Hopefully he and Vaughn have gotten to know each other pretty well the whole three days they've been 'back' together…because he's