Page 20 of Ginjuh

“Just…don’t worry about me, all right?”

“I’m not worried.” I chuckled. “Just thought it might make working together nicer if we could be friends. Or, at least, friendly.”

“I thought we weren’t friends?”

I laughed.

“Okay, okay.” I relented. “I’m sorry I said that, all right? I was upset that Grandpa had hired you and…well, not that he had hired you. Okay, maybe I was worried that you were weirder than you are and I thought this would be torture, working with you, and—”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Austin groaned.

“Well, some of us talk, some of us write in notebooks,” I replied.

Austin stood and let his now empty bottle of water drop next to the cooler. He picked up his scythe and headed back to work.

“Why don’t you talk to people instead of writing in the notebook?” I asked, jumping up and grabbing my scythe to follow him.

“None of your business.” He hacked at the corn stalks.

“Well, no,” I replied, joining him in the task. “But what else you got going on? We could talk.”

“You do it enough for both of us.”

I laughed.

“We kind of look like Grim Reapers out here, ya’ know?” I said, then immediately regretted it.

I hadn’t been alluding to what I had read in the notebook, it hadn’t even been on my mind, but I knew that I had made a mistake by saying it. When Austin rounded on me, his eyes at full slit, I knew that he had caught it, too.

“What?”

“Um, Grim Reapers?” I chewed at my lip. “Ya’ know? Using the scythes?”

He threw his scythe down.

“What’s your problem?” I frowned, feigning ignorance.

“How much did you read?”

“What?”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!”

“Dude, calm down.”

“That shit is private, dude!” He growled at me, his face filled with rage, his hands balling up into fists at his side. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

I sighed, realizing that things would only get worse if I tried to gaslight him.

“Look.” I let the handle of my scythe rest against the ground. “I just…I was curious…and, I didn’t intend to read anything. But I read the one poem—but no more. I stopped myself. I’m sorry, and—”

“You’re sorry?” Austin shoved me roughly.

Or, what would have been roughly if he had weighed more than a large dog.

“What the fuck, dude?” I took a step back so that I wouldn’t stumble, my scythe dropping to the ground in the process.

“Fuck you!” He shouted and shoved me again.