Excerpt: Hiding Out

I pressed one bare foot against the wet log, it was cool and promising. I walked dramatically to the middle of the log to where Astrid fell off. I turned to my left to look at her across the creek. I was pleased to see she was no longer shaking her head, but laughing with approval. I held one foot out to waiver above the water and balanced on one foot. I took a deep breath and jumped into the water. It was cool, but not too cold. I found she was right about the water being nice after the day in the hot halls of our high school. I kept my eyes closed under the water, but opened them when I resurfaced. I swam, found the bottom of the creek and walked the rest of the way back to Astrid. We linked arms and marched our way back to the house. Once we reached the alleyway, we stopped marching and unlinked our arms.

Her father was still out. We retrieved our bags from the living room and raided the kitchen. We were both feeling hungry even after our meal at Sali’s. I made chocolate milk, looked around for a while and found some chocolate chip cookies. Astrid found crackers and canned cheese. We didn’t drink our sodas in the backwoods and put them into the fridge to chill.

Astrid lived in the garage and loved it there. It was on the ground level, the garage door could open. On hot summer nights if the air-conditioning wasn’t working she would open the garage door and let the breeze float in. Another way to get to her room was through a door in the kitchen. We shuffled into her bedroom, turned on the lights and Astrid escaped to use her bathroom. Her off-white walls were covered with old advertisements for concerts, old music sheets and photos she developed herself. She had a queen sized bed, for which I was jealous of. I only had a small twin sized bed to roll around in. Her acoustic guitar was in one corner of the room, against the wall her keyboard was set up with a small stool below it. I sat down and played a small tune she taught me. Astrid came out of the bathroom and applauded me. I moved away from the keyboards. She turned on some music. We ate our food and talked out mindless things.

The weekend was turning out beautifully.