Stupid Fast

Chapter 56: CELL PHONE




My phone was like a ticking bomb that could go off at any minute. Maybe I wanted it to ring? Maybe. Maybe it would be Aleah, and she’d call me hers, and she’d bike over, and we could hold hands on the couch.

It didn’t ring. I looked at it.

But what if it did ring and it was Cody Frederick telling me how they were all coming after me because I was a jerk, because I wasn’t a jock and I ruined his party? I looked at the phone.

Did it light up?

No, that was a reflection from the overhead light. I hoped it would ring. I was terrified it would ring. I paced back and forth. I growled and jumped in place. It didn’t ring.

Andrew wasn’t at home for dinner. Grandma Berba made lasagna, which I hate, except this was delicious because it contained no turnips or radishes or zucchini or spinach or whatever else Jerri always used to throw in there. It was made with meat and cheese, and my leg bounced up and down. My phone was in my pocket. I ate and ate and ate. Grandma Berba told me to slow down. Jerri stared at me, watery-eyed from her medication. My leg bounced. My phone didn’t ring.

“Where the hell’s Andrew?” I asked.

“He stayed at his friend’s for dinner,” said Grandma Berba. “They weren’t done practicing.”

“Great!” I stuffed a whole piece in my mouth.

“Slow down, Felton,” Grandma Berba said.

***

And my phone didn’t ring.

After dinner, I tried sitting on Jerri’s bed, tried watching TV, but I couldn’t sit still.

“You’re bouncing the bed,” Jerri said.

“I’m going to run.” I got up.

“Run?” Jerri asked. “Like go running?”

“Yes.”

I left the room carrying my stupid phone. A*shole phone. In the garage, I grabbed a hammer and smashed the stupid thing to pieces.

Then I took off.

It was getting dark, and it was hard to see. Down on the main road, because we’re just outside of town, there are no lights, and the footing got terrible. I couldn’t really run.

I needed to find a lighted place, like the track by the college. How the hell would I get there? My bike. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

The Bluffton air smelled like poop-stinker. It closed in on me. I just wanted to bolt on my bike and break it all up. I couldn’t.

Out on the road in the dark, I stepped in a hole and then stopped because I’d break my ankle if I tried to run there, so I turned around and jogged back toward the house.

Would Grandma Berba drive me to a track?

I had to run.

By the house, I turned right and began to circle. The house was all lit up, light in every window, so much cheerier than before Grandma arrived. Because of all that light, I could see where I was going, and I gunned it. One lap around the house at top speed. One lap around the house slow to catch my breath. Then again and again and again. I spent easily the next hour doing that until I could run no more. My body stopped its twitching.

I showered to rinse blood off my leg and the pee smell off my body. Then I went to bed. Andrew still wasn’t home. My phone couldn’t ring because it was smashed in the garbage.

That’s fine, I thought. Really. Fine.

Oh, no.