Matt Rincorn is sitting on my bed. My bed. Where just this morning I lay under the covers, thinking about him and—
“I was gonna suggest laser tag for today, but that plan went off the rails,” Matt says, picking a piece of lint off my bedspread. “How about after school tomorrow?”
“Great.” I’m trying to focus on the hot guy in the room but at the same time it’s impossible not to glance around. What does my room look like to a person who’s never seen it before? Is there anything embarrassing that’s too familiar for me to notice?
My room is messy but not too bad, really. Sheila’s is always messier. Was.
“Kermit Sanders’s inner sanctum,” Matt muses. “Places I never thought I’d be.”
It’s too intense, him saying that. As if he’s thought of me. As if he’s wondered.
“This is me,” I answer, pushing past the discomfort of wondering how he feels about what he sees.
He touches each color on my Tae Kwon Do belt rack. White, yellow, green. My blue is tied to the waist of my uniform, currently hanging from the closet doorknob.
“Thought you were a lover, not a fighter,” he says.
“Tae Kwon Do teaches you to fight but the ethos of the discipline promotes peace.”
“Oooh,” he says, not quite mockingly, but with a hint of tone. “You’re such a good guy, aren’t you?”
“What does that mean?”
Matt shrugs. “Nothing bad. You seem really earnest about everything. That’s all.” He moves toward my bookcase and runs his finger over the spines on the top shelf. Above it hangs my collection of framed scripture quotes. About a dozen, in different sizes, shapes, and styles or fonts. Matt stands still for a time, appearing to read them. “I mean, look at this wall. Next you’re gonna tell me you’ve got Jesus on speed dial.”
“Maybe I did, once.” I shift in place. Is he looking too closely, or not closely enough?
“Hey, this is neat.” Matt crosses to the dresser and spins my LEGO carousel. It was a Christmas gift from Sheila a couple years ago. Still one of my all-time favorites.
“Thanks.”
“Did you ever ride the carousel at the Children’s Museum?” he asks.
“Yeah, a few times.” Floating fragments of impressions strike me. The memory of standing in line for what felt like ages, and then racing to get one of the mechanized horses that goes up and down. Waving at Mom and Dad over and over, each time we passed where they stood.
“I used to like it there,” Matt says, stroking the horses’ tiny manes.
Round and round, up and down. It’s close to how I feel right now. Having him here, amid the swirl of everything.
“We could go there, if you wanted.” Indy’s not that far away. We could get there and back in an afternoon.
“Yeah,” Matt says absently. Perhaps he’s already there in his mind, like I am.