Free Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie Page A

she’s not angry at me.
    As we’ve done a gazillion times before, without even talking about it, we head to the back porch. She carries the plate and fork. I grab a couple of sodas from the fridge.
    She holds the plate, waiting for me to settle down on the top step, facing out toward the woods at the back of the yard. With the sun sliding toward night, and the pinky-purple sky behind her, her hair looks even more golden than usual, streaky and kind of glowy in places. She moves a little and I realize I’ve been staring.
    I trade her one of the sodas for the steaming plate. Before digging in, I wait for her to sit. But she puts her soda down so she can pull her sweatshirt from around her waist and tug it over her head. COUGAR SOCCER blazes across her chest in brand-spanking-new gold letters. I remind myself not to stare. It’s new — the sweatshirt, not her chest. Her chest has been tormenting me for years. Last week, all the rising-senior soccer players got their “senior sweatshirts” in one of those very-important-to-them ceremony things. She’s been wearing it whenever it’s the least bit cool enough and being very careful not to get it dirty. Shauna already has senior fever: excited and going through all the rituals of junior year to be ready. The way things are going, I may never be a senior. Her teammates think I’m a loser. They’re not the only ones.
    I wait until she’s seated beside me to start. By then the casserole’s cool enough not to blister the roof of my mouth. Sitting side by side, I can’t see her face without turning my head, but I don’t need to look to know her face right now: tight, pinched, scared and sad and cautious, like she’s looked most of the semester, only a little bit worse, because of the fight. Her dark-brown eyes are probably squinted with worry, drowning out the gold flecks.
    I grunt my appreciation around a mouthful of chicken casserole. It’s warm and creamy and perfect. And pretty soon, there’s a growing pile of mushrooms on the edge of the plate and a spreading warmth in my stomach. Shauna must’ve told her mom she was bringing me dinner, because, despite the mushrooms, it’s one of my favorite meals ever.
    “Your ribs OK?” At least she let me get mostly done with dinner.
    “Never better.” I don’t really look at her, but I catch the small, mocking smile and shake of her head anyway. “Shauna.” My warning voice has never been as good as hers.
    “Yeah, right,” she says. “Sure.”
    She
is
pissed, and maybe at me. I can’t tell. Unnerving enough that she might be su;ciently pissed to get into it, but after all the months of her constantly studying me, those tense looks, not knowing is torture. I just can’t read her anymore.
    And now I can’t eat anymore, either.
    “Let it go.” I push the plate toward her on the step between us, knowing she’ll pick at the leftovers if she isn’t
too
pissed. At least the chicken and broccoli, and with her fingers, not my fork. I try not to smile when she picks up the plate. There’s hope for better yet.
    “At least clean out your knuckles,” she says. “They look kind of red. Are they getting infected?” She wrinkles her face for emphasis.
    I look at my hands. They are kind of gross, but I didn’t really think about them. I pick at the edge of the scab on my pinky finger until it rips. When I look up, she’s stopped eating, obviously disgusted.
    “Seriously, Matt, you could get really sick. You should clean them out with some peroxide or alcohol or something, maybe put some antibiotic cream and bandages on them at night.”
    We don’t have any peroxide or ointment or anything. I try to get my pinky to stop bleeding by sucking on it.
    “Lovely,” Shauna says. “Before the movie, at least wash that off and put a Band-Aid on it.”
    Back inside, I take the plate and wave her toward the stairs, pretending to crumple in pain when she flicks my chest as she walks past me.
    Shauna’s already putting in the