Free The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall

nothing.
    “Plus, everyone remembers how your dad took that gunman down.”
    “Of course,”
    “Shit, I still can’t believe I’m looking at you, Andy. You broke my heart, you know that?”
    “Whatever!”
    “That’s the truth. I was really fucked up about it for a good year or so. No one was good enough after you broke up with me.”
    There’s always a power shift, Andrew thought as Stuart scratched the sides of his face. The initial pursuer usually ends up being the one with less to lose. He wondered what the balance would be with him and Jared.
    “So, do you have a boyfriend now?”
    “Nah, nah. I don’t do relationships anymore. I’ve got Katie, you know, we still live together. We have the baseball team, and we’ve got the dogs.” He opened his wallet to show Andrew a photo of two golden doodles. Katie was Stuart’s roommate, a woman who made angel statue crafts out of wire and papier mâché and worked at the library. Andrew had always assumed she was gay, but she never had any girlfriends. Most people, including his parents, thought they were a couple.
    A car came barrelling down the side road and stopped. Only staff usually used that road, and kids skipping class. Andrew felt the same fear and anxiety he had in high school — that they would be caught — and then he laughed. Stuart looked uncomfortable. “I better go, I’m late for my next class. Don’t be a stranger, Andy. Call me if you want to have a drink and catch up.”
    Andrew watched him walk through the open field towards the school, the same limp in his right knee from the college football injury that had crushed his athletic dreams. He didn’t seem like an older man anymore, just old.
    When Andrew got back to his car, he turned the key in the ignition and the radio played a song from his high school days, a ballad from one of those awful post-punk bands the girls used to cry over. It started to rain slightly as he pulled out of his parking space, but it was still sunny in the distance above the mountains. The crescendo of the song sparked something in his chest, and Andrew started to cry. What the fuck was happening? What was he going to do about his father? At work he felt confident in his ability to argue his clients free. Now he felt like a doctor with a family member who was sick and whom he couldn’t care for. He was powerless.
    He got to the exit gate, but it was blocked by police cars. A cop made the universal hand gesture for him to roll down his window, which he did, slowly and only halfway. The joint in his back pocket started to feel as if it was burning him, though he knew this was his imagination. He wiped away the remaining tears clinging to his stubble.
    “Hello, sir. Are you a teacher at this school?”
    “No, no. My sister goes here. She forgot her lunch, so I was dropping it off,” he said.
    The cop took off his sunglasses and leaned closer to the window, placing one hand on the top of the car. “Can I see your ID , please?”
    Andrew sighed. “You actually don’t have a right to do that unless I’m suspected of a crime. Am I suspected of a crime? I’m a lawyer, you see.” He would never say such a thing in the city. But he wasn’t going to let some redneck townie push him around in Avalon Hills.
    The cop squinted at him, unimpressed, with the pained look of anyone forced to work harder than they want to.
    “Andy?”
    Andrew looked at his face. Despite the lines, the sagging skin under his eyes, and the salt-and-pepper beard, it was definitely Alan Chambers, a former jock from the public school down the road. Andrew had tutored him after school at the learning centre, a job he took because it would look good on college applications.
    “Alan?”
    A wave of nauseous recognition passed between them.
    “It’s been a long time,” Alan said coolly.
    “Yes, it has.”
    Alan continued to stare at him, blank, and then grinned. “You’re the reason I graduated, remember? Goddamn fractions!” He laughed,