Irreversible by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

unreachable

Your dad phoned again,” Fabian calls as soon as I walk in. It’s late afternoon and the exact middle of the limbo zone, twenty-four hours since the final workout, twenty-four more till they post the roster.

I’ve been too on-edge to talk about it with Fabian, or Joyce, or anybody yet.

“Did you hear me, Keir? I said your dad called again.”

“You answered my phone again,” I respond. It’s already a thing, a routine, a kind of comedy sketch we’ve been honing. Despite the fact that we’ve only been occupying this space together a short while. My previous roommate and my current one have spoken to each other more times than Ray and I have since I left home.

They achieved that already by the time they had spoken once.

I know the question. But I don’t know the answer. Of course I should call him. I should call him every day. He deserves that, and a lot more. He deserves better, way better. Better than me, is what he deserves.

“You know, Keir, you really should carry your phone. There are lots of good reasons. It just makes sound common sense.”

He deserves Fabian. I’m glad they have each other to talk to.

“Sound common sense, Fabian? Like when a guy tells you, if you answer my phone again, I’m gonna choke you to death and so you then wise up and stop answering the guy’s phone? That kind of sense?”

I don’t know what I’d do if he really did stop answering.

He’s chopping up fruit salad at his desk. He’s got a skill there, no question. He’s fast and makes no mess, and the shapes of completely unrelated fruits like bananas and plums somehow come out in the same rectangular cubes. And he always shares with me.

“That’s not what you said. You said you would throttle me.”

“I used the word ‘throttle’? I don’t think so.”

“Possibly not. But can’t you allow me to make little improvements here and there so I can pretend I didn’t wind up rooming with a jock?”

I sigh, because this kind of remark also breaks no new conversational ground between us. But I like fruit salad. And against the odds, I like Mr. Fabian Delmonico as if he were my oldest, closest pal. And he seems to like me, too. Which helps immensely when two guys are having to coexist in a tight space when they have very different interests and no actual common history. One might be tempted to think that was exactly why they got along right out of the chute. He’s an oasis of new and unusual for a guy wanting to unknow the familiar past.

Why should sad Ray have to be a casualty of that? Why can’t he be a beneficiary of it instead?

He’s not dead. I’m not a killer. I’m no kind of criminal.

“Fine, little improvements,” I say. “But don’t improve me so much I’m unrecognizable.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

I drag my chair over to his desk and sit close to the fruit piling up in the bowl.

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