Kyle Anderson's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Kyle drove home with the charm in his pocket and Thursday counting down in his head. He had a name now. That was all. Sebastian Ashford booked his car and knew his silences, and Kyle knew a building with balconies and a sweater the color of gum. Two days. He could not show up Thursday with weather in his mouth again. He needed one real thing about the man in the back seat, or the whole thing would flatten the second the door shut. He parked outside his building, a plain block of stacked balconies and clean paint that the landlord called Budget Haven. In his kitchen he set the charm on the counter and opened the app on his phone. He searched the name. The first hit was a swim team roster from a college two states over. Sebastian Ashford, freestyle, third place at a regional meet six years back. Kyle scrolled. There was a photo. Sebastian on a pool deck, hair wet, laughing at something outside the frame, a pair of faded blue trunks hanging off his hips like he had worn them a hundred summers. Kyle stared at the laugh. He had not seen that laugh in the car. Not once. He closed the phone. He had something now. He also had a problem. If he walked up Thursday and said, I know you used to swim, Sebastian would hear a driver who went home and searched him. That was not a spark. That was a restraining order waiting to happen. Kyle sat at the counter a long time. Then he opened the app again and did the harder thing. He deleted the tab. He picked up the charm and turned it in his fingers the way Sebastian had. The paint was worn where a thumb had rubbed it for years. He did not need a swim roster. He needed a question Sebastian would want to answer. He got out a receipt and wrote on the back. Not what do you do. Not where are you from. He wrote, what's one thing you used to be good at that you miss. He read it twice. It was small and it was real and it did not come from a search bar. He folded the receipt around the charm and set both by his keys. Thursday was still two days out. He had stopped bringing nothing. He had brought a question instead, and the search history he wiped so he could ask it clean.