Free Schism by Britt Holewinski

crossing the street, she knocked on the door once, twice, then three times. After the third knock, she suddenly realized how early it still was, but it was too late. Ben answered, his eyes half-open and wearing only his jeans.
    “Oh, sorry,” Andy blurted. She averted her gaze from his bare chest. “Forgot how early it was.”
    “Didn’t sleep?” He rubbed his eyes with one hand and backed away from the door to let her inside. She hesitated a moment before entering.
    “Not really. I woke up a while ago and went for a walk.”
    He walked toward the kitchen and took a seat at the tiny dining table. Andy followed but didn’t sit down. Instead, she stood in between the kitchen sink and the refrigerator, neither of which were operational. Stuck to the front of the fridge with magnets were pictures of some family who had once inhabited the house. Children possibly long gone and parents long dead.
    “Where did you walk?” Ben asked.
    “More like ‘wander,’ but I ended up at Maria’s.”
    After Andy recounted her discussion with Maria, he said, “So you want to go to Colorado.”
    It was a statement, not a question, but she responded as though he were asking. “Maybe…yes. It’s worth checking. If it doesn’t work out, we can always come back here.”
    Ben sat back in his chair and cracked his knuckles, one at a time. He was thinking. “By ‘we,’ you mean you three?” He was going to make her ask.
    “And you and Jim, if you want to come.” There, she thought. Nothing more than a simple offer.
    He looked at her for a long moment, which made her uneasy, and she wondered if he knew that he could affect her that way.
    “I’ll ask Jim when he gets up,” was all he said.
    Andy merely nodded. There was nothing more to say, so she asked to see the road map.
    “Yeah, it’s in the truck. I’ll grab it.”
    “No, I can get it…”
    But Ben was already back on his feet and walking toward the door. He reappeared a minute later with the map. Instead of handing it to her, he returned to the table and laid the map out flat. He leaned over and began to study it.
    “You don’t have to do that,” she insisted as she moved toward the table. “I can look at it later.”
    “I’m just curious,” he said, then gazed at her with a mixture of suspicion and amusement. “Maybe you don’t want to tell me where in Colorado you plan to go.”
    “I don’t know where we’re going yet.” Her eyes moved from the map to Ben’s chest and then quickly she turned toward the kitchen counter. She noticed a blue T-shirt lying in a pile and picked it up and threw it on top of the map.
    Ben looked at the shirt for a second and then looked back at Andy. He smiled and picked up the shirt. “This isn’t mine. It’s Jim’s.”
    “I’m sure it fits.”
    “Am I making you uncomfortable? Not wearing a shirt?”
    Andy’s hand clamped around the edge of the countertop. “You look cold,” was her feeble reply.
    “It’s like a hundred degrees out.”
    “Well, you’re making me cold just looking at you.” She knew how stupid she sounded, so she reached for the map and snatched it off the table. “I’ll bring it back later.” She bolted out the front door without looking back.
    Not ten seconds after Andy returned Morgan was hammering away with questions. “So what’d Ben say?”
    “He said he would talk to Jim after he woke up.”
    “Did he say if they’d be interested in going?”
    “If Jim says yes, then I think they will.”
    Charlie emerged from his bedroom and entered the living room where they were sitting. His hair was disheveled and his steps were uneven. “Good Lord, what are you two babbling about?” he mumbled before plopping down next to Morgan.
    “Sorry,” Andy said before filling him in on the morning’s events. When she finished, he simply blinked his eyes a few times, then stood up.
    “I’m starved,” he said stumbling into the kitchen. “I need to elevate my blood sugar levels before I can