"Seriously, Why are you so worried about this guy?" Emilio asks me, and his hand drops down to hold onto my shoulder. "He's our age, practically a grown-ass man. You shouldn't be wasting your time chasing him around, Carter! "
We're standing outside the shop, about to go inside, and I'm about to yank the doorknob open so I can storm in and grab Fish. But then what Emilio says registers in my head, I hesitate, staring at my reflection in the glass, wide-eyed and unsure of what exactly I was getting into.
Fish wasn't my responsibility, I wasn't supposed to go chasing him around, pulling him out of trouble every time he wandered off. There were people who did that, his parents, the woman who was letting him stay at her house. Somebody, anybody.
"Listen, Emilio," I say, and then I turn to him, plucking his hand off my shoulder like an annoying pest. "I know he doesn't need a babysitter. I'm not doing this to look good or suck up to anybody. I'm just doing it because Fish looks like he needs some moral support. Literally, the whole school ignored him today just because he couldn't talk. "
Emilio's mouth snaps closed in an instant.
"So yeah, I'm going after him, whether you like it or not," I toss in, and shrug a little. "Follow me or don't. I don't care. Fish needs me more than you do right now."
"Okay, Fine! " "But don't come crying to me when you need gay advice!" Emilio exclaims, his hands up in frustration.
"I don't need advice on being gay! I'm doing fine on my own!" I shout back at him, and then I slam open the door and step into the shop, unaware of the fact that I was going to be eating my words in just a few short seconds.
"We fully support sexual exploration, brah." The guy behind the counter is explaining to Fish, when I finally find him staring at a rack of crunchy hippy-looking magazines with a bunch of naked people on the front, "Free love, man, free love."
Oh my God.
"Fish?" I go up to him and he turns around, holding a magazine with this fully naked guy on the front that vaguely looks like Tom Hanks in Castaway, only a million times younger, thank God. He was also wearing this plastic mermaid tail with shiny sequins, but it wasn't pulled up all the way around his waist, so his butt hung out from the top.
"Your little friend looked lost, so I helped him look around," the cashier smiles over at me, "He seemed super interested in Oz."
"What?" My throat suddenly feels dry, and I'm not really listening to the guy, I'm just looking at Fish, who's casually flipping through the magazine, which is chock full of naked guys.
"Oz," the cashier explains, "It's, like, a gay hippy magazine that we release every month."
"Oh, um... I'm not looking for..." I trail off and glance over at Fish, who points to one of the guys dressed up in a potato sack loin-cloth, wandering around in a field, his arms open wide like he was absorbing the sun.
"Excuse us!" I rasp, and then I grab Fish and pull him down the aisle, out of view. "What the hell are you doing?" I demand, my voice an irate hiss. "You can't be looking at this stuff in public!"
Fish glances over at me and then smiles. A second later, he slips me a piece of paper with something scrawled on it in red ballpoint pen.
"Carter, it's okay."
"Are you crazy? Someone from school could walk by and see us! " I hiss at him, and then I crumple up the little paper and toss it at him, watching it bounce off his shoulder before vanishing behind a rack of crystals.
Fish rolls his eyes, and then he pulls out his pen and paper again,
"I want to explore, with you. Free love. "
The paper's not even halfway in my hand when I realize what he means about exploring. Fish wanted to do the horizontal tango, with me. And we didn't even know each other like that, or at all, actually. We were practically strangers, and Fish could only speak through cards and pieces of paper.
"No," I say simply, pushing the hippy Oz magazine back into his hand. "Fish, I'm not ready for something like that. I mean, it's fine and all, especially with you—it would be great to sleep with you, but I—"
Fish silences me when he puts his hand on my chest.
He just rests his fingers there, not saying anything or moving his hand lower. It was like he was quieting me, trying to ease my frustration. And weirdly enough? It worked.
"Are you two dumbfucks going to buy something or are you going to go gaga for each other in the middle of my store and waste my time?"
I almost scream when Anderson Crick appears between us, dressed in a green apron and black sweater, a stark contrast to his geeky khakis from the aquarium and oversized t-shirt.
Fish points to Anderson and then at me, his eyes round.
"Yeah, I know!" I chime in, and then I turn back to Anderson and say, "Are you following us or what?"
Anderson scoffs a little, his arms crossing in front of his chest. "Sorry, but no. This is where I work after school. I'm trying to buy a boat with the money I earn so I can go look for mermaids once I graduate from high school. You can come with me if you want, it's going to be super interesting and scientific. "
I hesitate, unsure of how to respond to that. Anderson had always been kind of crazy, but actually wanting to buy a boat just to hunt for mermaids was something that a nutcase did before they locked him up for stabbing someone with a pair of scissors.
"What about you?" Anderson eyes Fish up and down, his lip curling slightly, "Why are you following Carter around? What's the game plan, pretty boy? "
Fish shrugs his shoulders.
Anderson gets right in his face, coming up to about his chin, "I'm on to you, Tuna Breath!" He hisses, jabbing Fish in the chest a couple of times, "It's only a matter of time until that sparkly tail flops out at some unexpected moment! And when it does, I'll be there! "
"Get off of him!" I snap, and then I push Anderson off of Fish, "He's not a fucking mermaid, Anderson! He's just some kid who's lost his memory and needs help! "
"Oh yeah?" Anderson demands, and then he pulls out a tiny vile of something clear, "How about this?" He snaps, and then he splashes Fish with the weird liquid, soaking the front of his T-shirt. "Salt water, bitches!"
"Anderson, you piece of shit!"
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