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“LUCAS!” I yell, battering his back with my fists. “Let me down. This isn’t funny.”
He used to do this all the time. First, it was during the summer before high school, when he grew half a head taller than me overnight and could carry me around with ease. He did it to make me laugh.
He did it again, a few years later, in high school. But not to make me laugh. No, it was more to demonstrate just how tiny and weak and helpless I was compared to him. He did it in my parent’s living room when he tossed me onto the carpet and held me down and lowered his head so that his hair tickled my cheek, and whispered into my ear —
Anyway.
Sometimes I can’t believe we became friends again. Although, to be honest, I don’t know if we’re friends, exactly. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say childhood-friends-turned-enemies-turned-roommates-who-tolerate-each other.
Lucas drops me on the couch. I land with a gasp, and then, a few seconds later, he’s putting shoes on my feet.
“Alright, alright,” I say, waving him out of the way. “I can put my own shoes on.”
The most efficient way to stop him bothering me is to go grocery shopping with him, and besides, maybe it’ll distract me from Cleo. It’s not like I need to do my readings right this instant anyway.
After my shoes are on, I grab a handful of reusable grocery bags and turn off my computer. Lucas waits by the front door, a smug look on his face.
“I hate you,” I say as we head outside.
“You love me,” he says.
“No. I really don’t.”
*
We walk to a supermarket that’s only a few hundred metres away from our apartment complex. Lucas talks about volleyball. Earlier this semester, he convinced me to join the social volleyball sessions held at the university sports centre. It was a good way to exercise, he said, and, “Charlie, you should probably exercise more.”
After bugging me about it for three hours straight, I agreed. We went one evening and joined the beginners’ group, and it was a lot more fun than I expected. Since then, we’ve been going weekly. However, after one month, Lucas moved up into the intermediate group.
“I’m not actually that good,” he says now, in a rare display of humility. “I’m just tall, so I can block and spike the ball more easily.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.
“Seriously, the coach constantly roasts me.” He leans over and ruffles my hair. “You’re getting pretty good, though.”
I push him away and flatten my hair back to the way it was. “Why do you say that?”
“I watched you during the practice match.”
I look up at him. Every time we walk together and I want to meet his eyes, I have to crane my neck. It drives me crazy. “You did?” I ask.
“Yeah. You’re getting better. Never would’ve expected you’d be a sporty guy, but here you are. Now I just need to convince you to hit the gym with me.”
“No way. Never gonna happen.”
“Come on, Lucas. You need to do it for your own good.” He grabs my wrist and holds it up. “I could snap this like a twig.”
I snatch my hand back. This happens every time — Lucas will be friendly for two seconds, and then he’ll say something like that. “Stop trying to hold my hand,” I say.
That stuns him. Then, he laughs, a harsh, nasty sound.
My skin burns. I think of high school and of my unanswered message to Cleo, and then I walk away, but no matter how fast I am, it’s pointless. Lucas, with his long legs, catches up with me almost immediately.
*
By the time we’re in the health food section of the supermarket, I’ve lost the energy to keep being angry at Lucas. Maybe it’s because sometimes when I look at him, I see the little kid who used to follow me around.
I used to be taller than him, back in primary school. I was taller, and he was shorter, and I was the captain, and he was my first mate. Look at how things have changed.
