Free Running Back To Him by Evelyn Rosado

“You’re scared to death...it’s cute.”
    “I am not!”
    “Really? Then why are you doing that?” He nods his head down to my left hand resting on my knee.
    “Doing what? I’m not doing anything.” I swallow hard.
    “Your tic is showing and you don’t even realize it.” He shakes his head.
    I look down at my left hand and I’ve been picking at the skin on the side of my thumb. It’s raw and beet red. I pull it away and tuck it under my thigh. I’ve been doing it since I got in the car with him so much I didn’t even notice. I couldn’t believe he remembers how much I used to do that as a kid.
    “You never could get rid of that habit.” We pull up to the red light at the intersection nearest the school. He turns his head to me. “Remember when your Dad promised to give you a hundred dollars if you could go a week without doing it. You didn’t make it to the end of the day.” He snickers.
    I stare out the window in shock that he hadn’t forgotten that. It’s been so long ago that slipped my mind. We’ve acted like total strangers over the last few years that I couldn’t believe that he would recall such a thing.
    “I almost forgot about that,” I say giggling. “I can’t believe you remembered that…it was so long ago.”
    “You crazy? I’ll never forget that. You used to wear those cute Sesame Street Band-Aids all the time. It was so adorable.”
    I slap his knee. “It was so dorky.”
    He shrugs and flashes an irresistible smile at me. “It was so sweet.” Our eyes lock and I become lost in the deepness of his eyes. He swallows hard, his eyes still fixated on me.
    A horn honks behind us, we both jump slightly, breaking us out of the allure.
    The light turns green and Kellen floors it.
    ***
    We sit in his car in the back of the parking lot—silent. He takes his sunglasses off and places them on the dashboard.
    “So,” he says.
    “So,” I respond.
    “I guess this is it.” I nod. “Any last words…because things are about to get really trippy.”
    I sigh and think about how I could tell him that when we were at the intersection and there was that intense standstill where we were gazing at each other, I wanted to reach over and kiss him. I could tell him that, but what’s the point of making my life more drama-filled than it already is.
    “Nope.” I smile brightly. “No last words at all.”
    “Good.” He opens the door and gets out. “So, I guess we’ll totally run a no-huddle offense.”
    I shut the door a confused look colors my face. “Speak English why don’t you.”
    “No-huddle is when the offense doesn’t go back to the huddle after the play; they go right back to the line of scrimmage.”
    “You said that like I’m still not confused.”
    “It’s kind of like winging it. It keeps the defense on their toes.”
    “Gotcha.”
    He extends his right arm out to me and I stare at it. “If we want to make this believable we better get started, right?”
    It’s only been a few seconds, but it feels like minutes have passed by. I clear the frog in my throat. “You…m-mean hold hands?” I couldn’t fathom something so simple being so petrifying. This is supposed to be pretend, remember Mags?
    “No, I mean play patty cake. Of course I mean hold hands. Who’s going to believe we’re going out together if we don’t do the whole PDA thing? All in, one hundred percent right?”
    “You’ve got a point,” I say in the best bubbly, flirty voice I can muster. It probably sounds ridiculous to him through my chattering teeth. My entire body is juddering, at least on the inside.
    I grab his hand and nestle my tiny digits within his. I close my eyes and exhale deeply. It feels charged to be touching him like this. My knees almost buckle about halfway to the school entrance. Out of the corner of my eye I look at Kellen; he’s not even batting an eyelash. This is light work for him; another day at the ballpark.
    While for me, I’m about to have a panic attack. We’re