“I like this,” I said, unsure of what I was telling him I liked—the sunset or the company. I supposed I liked both.
He sighed. “Me, too. But, we don’t exactly make for the best conversationalists, do we?” He picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. “I’ll sure take a comfortable silence over uncomfortable conversation any day.”
“That’s an understatement,” I said. “I’ve never been a fan of talking about me anyway.”
“Ditto,” Jake said. “So, what do two people who don’t want to talk about themselves, who obviously have some secrets in their closets, talk about?”
“I never said I had secrets.”
“But you do,” Jake said. “It’s kind of obvious.”
“Doesn’t everybody? Don’t you?”
“More than most.”
“Ditto,” I mimicked him. He laughed and laid down in the sand, staring up into the newly blue sky. He folded his hands over his chest.
“Maybe, someday you can tell me yours.”
“Not likely, “I told him. “You going to tell me yours?”
“Probably not.” He smiled up at me. “I still want to know why you were in the yard the other night, though.”
“It’s no big deal, I just needed somewhere to crash.”
“So, you picked a truck in a junkyard?”
“It’s my Nan’s truck. She never could afford to get it fixed. So, it’s just been sitting there.”
“You didn’t have anywhere else to go?”
I thought about not answering him. It would be easier not to. But he’d given me a ride, and I was tired of running from anyone who asked me anything about myself. “Not really. The foster care gestapo was after me. I was just hiding until she got bored and left.”
“Foster care?” Jake asked. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I answered. He seemed a bit relieved. “She’s probably long gone now.” I hoped she was, anyway. I left out the part about the eviction and being homeless. “I live with my Nan... or, at least, I lived with my Nan. She died three weeks ago, and since I’m not eighteen they want to throw me in foster care.” I volunteered all that. It wasn’t even remotely the biggest secret I was keeping.
“And you’re running from them because you don’t want to go into foster care?”
“I won’t go into foster care.” It was the best answer I could come up with. It was more than me not wanting to. I wasn’t going, and that was it.
“What happens if they force you?” Jake asked.
“I won’t go, no matter what,” I said. “If they take me by force…” I didn’t want to finish my sentence. I knew what I would do. I would either hurt someone and opt for prison over foster care or hurt myself, and simply opt out of life. I didn’t consider myself suicidal. Just tired.
“Can’t you just get emancipated or something?”
It was a question I actually didn’t have to look up the answer for. “No. You have to have parental permission, and you have to prove that you can support yourself. I can’t do either. And it takes a long time. I’d be eighteen and an adult before it was granted, anyway.”
“Sounds like you’ve looked into it.” I hadn’t needed to. I’d been in the foster care system. I didn’t look into it. I just knew it.
I changed the subject.
“So, you work at the junkyard?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’m not here long-term or anything. Dad’s manager Reggie called me and said he needed some help straightening everything. Their secretary quit, their purchase orders are all wrong, and their ancient computer system crashed and took all their information with it. It’s a mess.”
“Why doesn’t your dad fix it?”
“He’s…sick,” Jake said. Everyone in town knew that Frank Dunn was a hermit. He rarely came out of his house, and when he did, it was just to buy booze.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I knew what it was like to have a “sick” parent... or parents. Mine were the sickest of them all.
The comfortable silence returned and we sat side by side, watching the pelicans dive into the water for fish. It amazed me how they could see from that far up in the sky. They never seemed to miss and always emerged chomping on their catch, fins flopping between their beaks.
The sun had been up in the sky for way longer than could be called a sunrise, so we walked in silence back to the bike. I told him where Nan’s house was. He said he didn’t need directions. Of course, he didn’t.
I kept forgetting he was from here.
I thought once we got to Nan’s, if I didn’t acknowledge the giant blue tarp in the driveway then he wouldn’t either. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. I handed him his helmet.
“What’s all that?” he asked, gesturing to the very thing I’d hoped he would ignore.