inviting me, so I’d play by his rules, even if that meant that I’d only see the shoulders of the person in front of me.
Yeah. See you then.:) I closed my phone, deciding instantly that I couldn’t tell Jane about this. If hanging out with Jack became a regular thing, I knew I’d have to tell her. And Milo. But for now, I thought it’d be best if I kept it to myself. It was weird because I’m not a secretive person at all. I can’t keep anyone’s secrets, not even my own, so I couldn’t really explain what compelled me to keep this to myself.
I spent the next twenty-four hours avoiding Jane and hedging Milo’s questions. He had a sixth sense when something was up with me, and it was nearly impossible to keep anything hidden from him. When I was getting ready to go out, he knew there was a guy involved. I don’t know how. All I had put on was a slim-fitting hoodie and a pair of jeans, so I don’t understand what that would give away.
Every time I left him home alone at night, I felt terrible. Sure, he was fourteen, and at this point, we’d spent most of our lives alone, but it still never felt right to me. I knew he didn’t really want me to go because he didn’t know what I was up to, but he assured me that he’d be fine playing World of Warcraft on the computer and he’d barely even notice I was gone. This was probably true, but I still felt guilty when I stepped outside to wait for Jack.
Jack arrived promptly at six-thirty, washing away any feelings of guilt or trepidation. Normally when I wait for someone to pick me up, I turn into a neurotic mess and I’m positive they’re going to stand me up. For some reason, I didn’t feel that way at all. As soon as I saw him, I just felt at ease and vaguely contented. There was definitely something drawing me towards him, something I couldn’t explain.
“Hey,” Jack smiled broadly at me when I hopped into his car.
“Thanks,” I replied. “For all this.”
“All what?” Jack looked confused as we pulled away from my house, speeding quickly down Washington towards the club that The Matches was playing at.
“The ride, the tickets, saving my life,” I elaborated, and he laughed his amazing laugh again.
“Oh, that,” he teased. “It’s really not a problem. Trust me.”
“Just because it wasn’t a problem for you doesn’t me that I’m not grateful,” I pointed out.
“Fair enough,” Jack allowed. “Well, you’re welcome then.”
Parking downtown should’ve been impossible, but he managed to find a spot half a block away. It was obvious that he could walk much faster than I could, but he kept his pace to match mine, making me feel guilty for holding him up. It was almost seven when we reached the door, and I knew part of the problem was because I was slowing us down. I started to apologize, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
By the time I saw the crowd of kids inside, I had already resigned myself to being unable to catch sight of the band onstage. Girls gaped at him, and the crowd almost seemed to part for Jack. He took my hand to weave us through the people that hadn’t really moved, and there was something very odd about his touch. His skin was neither hot nor cold. It just felt… temperature-less. Although his skin was tremendously soft, it reminded me of a lizard. The way they can’t regulate their temperature at all, so they’re always whatever temperature the room is or whatever’s touching them.
We made our way up pretty close to the stage, but thanks to my height, it did me little good. When the band came out and the crowd rushed forward, I ended up with my head smooshed into the yellow tee shirt of the guy in front of me. Somehow, Jack managed to stand his ground, creating a little pocket of unmashedness. He immediately noticed my predicament, and rather deftly, he scooped me up and put me on his shoulders, so my legs were straddling his neck. Suddenly, I became very conscious of the fact that I weighed something over a hundred pounds (the exact amount is irrelevant) and that had to be heavy. Hell, fifty pounds sounded heavy when its sitting on your shoulders, but Jack had lifted me like I was a small child and dropped me easily onto his shoulders.
“Let me know if I get too heavy,” I shouted near his ear to be heard over the music.
Initially, I considered demanding that he put me down, but I was kind of excited to be able to actually see a concert for the first time. Plus, I had a feeling he wouldn’t comply, especially since he’d been able to lift me with such ease.
“You won’t!” Jack yelled back, and I knew that was true.
I could actually feel his muscles under my legs, and while they didn’t seem all that impressive, he was somehow incredibly strong. I thought back to the night we had met, and the way he had appeared to blur with speed. The hooligans chasing us had looked like they were being thrown in the air, but these had been guys that were much larger than Jack. At the time, I had assumed that my eyes were just playing tricks on me, but when Jack picked me up, it was as if I weighed nothing. Either I had greatly underestimated his strength, or there was something else going on here. Jack was very quickly become one giant enigma.
Throughout the entire show (which was spectacular) he never faltered or even hinted at putting me down. When the crowd started to disperse, I was still on his shoulders, and I could feel his urge to carry me out. Instead, carefully, he lifted me up off his shoulders and set me on the ground.
“Holy cow!” I exclaimed after he’d put me down. “You must eat like a double dose of Wheaties every day!”
“What are you talking about?” Jack asked, looking at me like I was insane.
“You’re super strong!” Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his bicep, trying to feel some massive amounts of hidden muscle, but honestly, it felt pretty ordinary.
“You’re just really light,” Jack shrugged. He started walking away, attempting to end that line of conversation, but I hurried after him.
“What’s your angle?” I asked, trying to sound more playful than demanding.
“Isosceles,” Jack quipped.
“What?” If Milo had been there, he probably would’ve understood the reference, but geometry wasn’t my thing.
“You asked me what my angle was, so I said isosceles,” Jack explained, looking down at me to make sure that he wasn’t losing me in the crowd. Most of the people had exited the venue by then, except for the disproportionate number of girls that seemed to linger around us. “It’s a type of a triangle with two equal sides. I suppose that’s not really an angle, and I would’ve said something like acute or obtuse, but I thought that would either sound like I was hitting on you or calling you stupid. I should’ve said oblique. Damn! That would’ve been good. I’m gonna remember that for next time.”
“You’re the most cryptic person I’ve ever met,” I sighed. Jack laughed, and everyone around turned to look at him.
We stepped outside into the cold night air, and I pulled my sweatshirt tighter to me, flipping the hood up over my head. Normally, the night air felt refreshing after being all sweaty and crammed with other people on the floor, but since I’d been on Jack’s shoulders, I hadn’t gotten hot at all. He didn’t look sweaty from fighting off the mosh pit, and the cold didn’t seem to effect him either. I was tempted to reach out and take his hand to see what the temperature felt like, but since I didn’t actually want to hold his hand for the sake of holding his hand, it felt too awkward.
“So, did you have fun?” Jack asked me as we walked leisurely to his car.
“I did,” I smiled at him, suddenly remembering that he was responsible for everything good that had happened tonight. I should show more gratitude and spend less time worrying about all the little things that seemed off with him.
“Did you?”
“Of course.”
There was always this wonderful rush after a good concert, like adrenaline but less panicky. So when they let out, I was usually talking a mile a minute about the show and the people and just anything and everything. Tonight, though, I fell silent. There were millions of things running through my mind that I wanted to talk about, but very little had to do with the performance I had seen, so I kept my mouth shut. The last thing I wanted was to interrogate Jack into hating me.
“I don’t mean to be cryptic,” Jack said at length. We were almost to his car, but he stopped walking and kept his gaze focused on some point straight ahead. His hands were shoved deep in the pocket of his Dickies shorts, and he sighed. “I don’t have an angle. Just…” He looked over at me, as if to make sure that I was still listening. I peered up at him from underneath my hood, and he smirked a little. “You’re cold. We should get in the car.”
“No! Tell me what you were going to say first!” I demanded, sounding more forceful than I meant to, but Jack
