Page 14 of Convergence

“Right, not right now. Got it,” Nate said, shaking his head like he was embarrassed and quickly left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. A semi-hysterical laugh bubbled out of my lips and I swore I heard at least one other male voice laughing in the house.

I was very much finished with my bath after he left and I got out, brushed my teeth, and hurried to my room. My pajamas were a pair of boy short panties and a perfectly baggy science club t-shirt from high school. My knee felt better after the soak, but I was no more relaxed than when I got in the tub. I sighed as I laid in bed, staring out my window. A car drove by blaring music, a girl screamed in the distance, and people laughing down the street filtered in.

Maybe if I watched a happy show on tv, I would relax enough to sleep. I tiptoed downstairs and pushed the oversized ottoman up to the couch to create a sort of bed. I curled up under the blankets and turned on The Office, letting the safety and humor of that show relax me.

I was about to doze off when Nate came down the stairs, now wearing a pair of black pajama pants decorated with the green Xbox logo. He found me on the couch and brushed back my hair from my face. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, too drowsy to speak.

“Are you mad at me?”

I shook my head.

“Can I join you? That movie was fucking dumb,” he asked and ran his hand through his own hair and looked away.

I gave a little smile and patted the space next to me. He lifted the blanket, and a rush of cool air met my skin before he slid in next to me.

“Did that movie weirdly scare the crap out of you, too?” he asked as he settled with his bare arms behind his head as a pillow.

“A little,” I said sleepily with a yawn.

“Well, let’s sleep down here where we know big bad Everett will come save us in his undies,” Nate said through his own yawn.

I giggled quietly and fell asleep almost at once.

When I woke up, Everett was shaking Nate awake behind me. Nate was curled around me, and my backside was tucked securely against him.

“Wake up if you want to go running,” Everett said flatly and left the room. I heard him in the kitchen filling his water bottle.

I sat up with a stretch and looked at the clock on the wall above the tv. It was close to six in the morning and my alarm must have been chiming for thirty minutes upstairs.

Nate and I rushed to our rooms to get changed into our running gear and met Everett out at Marie Curie. He was silent and stoic the entire drive to the park. Nate and I shrugged at each other behind his back.

“Did you sleep well, Ev?” I asked him, thinking about how Nate and I were scared after the movie.

“Not as good as it seemed like the rest of us did,” Ev said with a hint of malice.

I didn’t understand. Was he mad about me and Nate sleeping on the couch? Or was he grumpy because he actually hadn’t slept well?

Nate exhaled hard and leaned back in the seat, knocking his shoulder against mine where I was leaning over the seat to talk to Ev. I dropped the effort to hold a conversation and sat on the bench, facing the back of the cart. Nate ran his hands through his hair and the evergreen scent of his shampoo washed over me.

We stretched and started our run-in relative silence, only pointing out the doe that was grazing in the woods. We made it to our field house that we now deduced was checked in on and maintained once every two weeks, and the lock had not been repaired. Every time a park maintenance person had locked it after their rounds, it slid open again when we pushed it.

Ever since that first trip where Nate laid down on the linoleum, we’ve all started doing it. The floor was clean and cool against our heated skin from the run there and it helped me relax. We would listen to the water outside and talk. The place was so quiet and calm that we felt safe talking about anything when we were there. Therefore, it was no surprise when Nate sighed and said, “I really hate isolation,” with frustration in his voice. “I didn’t think I was a very social person until I wasn’t able to speak to anyone other than you two. No offense.”

“I know what you mean,” Everett said. “Sometimes I feel like the quarantine is a bit severe, considering we follow all appropriate safety measures.”

“You won’t believe it, seeing as I don’t speak to anyone, but I feel the same,” I said.

“No, I believe it. Even if you weren’t actuallysayinganything, I always knew what you were thinking,” Nate said nonchalantly.

I smiled at him.

We were quiet for a few more minutes before Everett spoke. “Being isolated makes me think of my brother.”

Nate and I turned our heads to him, and Nate went up on an elbow to see Ev over me. “You have a brother?”

“Yeah, he’s my only sibling. His name is Easton. He’s older than me by about six years,” Everett didn’t look at us and cleared his throat before continuing. “Man, I looked up to that guy more than I looked up to my dad. He joined the Army right out of high school. My parents were so proud of him.Soproud. I was too. It was a big deal in our family to defend our country and enlist in the armed forces. A few years in, he was on a mission and got hurt. Nothing too serious, but he had to take some time off and he ended up kind of going AWOL.” Everett stopped to clear his throat again. I recognized it as a nervous habit and waited quietly for him to continue. “When he came home, they discharged him from the Army and they told us he likely had PTSD from what happened. He did the therapy, he did the work, but he claims to have seen something… knows something that no therapy would erase. He got big into different conspiracy theories and alcohol, stuff got combative, and my parents ended up kicking him out of the house.”

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