The Exact Opposite of Okay(47)

His mom nods. “Yeah. Scott was gon’ come by, but he didn’t. Don’t know why I’m surprised.”

I guess they’re talking about the partner who left recently, leaving them in the shit with money.

Carson grabs the little girl by the ankles and lifts her up. She squeals with delight as he dangles her at shoulder height. “It’s gonna be a’ight. I picked up some extra shifts this weekend.” He places the giggling girl down again and turns his attention to the boy – his brother? “Looks like someone’s getting pizza for dinner again. PIIIZZZAAAAAAA!!” He growls this last bit like a pizza monster, chasing the kid a short way down the street. “GRRRRRR!”

His mom and I are both laughing too. Then she says, “That’s enough, pizza monster. Time for your prey to have a bath.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty stinky,” Carson says, fanning his nose extravagantly to illustrate his point. His prey laughs hysterically. “Want me to do it?”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Annaliese says. “You walk Izzy home. I got it.”

Despite the crappy situation she’s in, she’s all twinkly at the sight of me and Carson together.

As we walk back to mine, I don’t have to force conversation. It just flows. “So is your coach cool with you skipping practice to work at the pizza place?” I ask.

“Nah, he’s a dick about it,” he replies. He works a thumb into the back of his shoulder to dig out a knot, wincing a little as he does so. “But what’s he gonna do? Cut me from the team? Pfft. I’d like to see ’em win a game without me.”

His confidence is nice. It’s not arrogant. It comes with a cheeky grin and a jesting tone, rather than a condescending sneer.

“You must be pretty good then, huh?” I ask. “I mean, I’ve seen you play, and it looks impressive. But I know more about algebra than I do about sports, and that’s saying something.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I’m not bad. Not like I’m gonna be one of the greats, though.”

“No?”

“Nah. I’m too short, for one thing.” I shoot him an unconvinced look. He’s well over six feet tall. He holds his hands up. “Hey, I don’t make the rules. I’m a shortass compared to the NBA All-Stars. So yeah, not tall enough, or committed enough. Or interested enough, to be honest.”

This last one catches me off guard. “Really? I thought you loved basketball.”

“I do, man, I do. But you can love a thing without necessarily dedicating your life to it, you know?”

The profoundness of this statement leaves me slightly breathless. I feel like it might apply to my situation, to the pressure I’m putting on myself to succeed in this screenplay competition, but I’m too engaged with the conversation to delve into the idea properly. I tuck it away in the back of my mind to revisit later.

“So do you wanna do the whole college thing?” I ask, enjoying getting to know Carson beyond the class-clown image.

He shrugs noncommittally. “I dunno. I figure I’d enjoy it, but am I willing to get into that much debt just to check a box?” Another shrug. “Right now, I don’t think so. I’d rather stay home and support my family. Leave my passions as hobbies. Play when I wanna play, read what I wanna read. That’d be enough for me, I think.”

I smile, a warm feeling spreading through my chest. Carson’s on my wavelength. He genuinely understands that following your wildest dreams isn’t the best option for a lot of people. And he’s made his peace with it, but not in a depressing way. He’s happy. And for the thousandth time since we started talking, I feel refreshed by him. By his personality, his kindness, his outlook.

Uh-oh. I’m in trouble.

“So what other passions do you have? Besides basketball.” I find myself genuinely caring about the answer, rather than just thinking about the next thing I’m going to say. As a nervous conversationalist, this is something of a breakthrough.

“I like to paint. Not like hills and trees and shit. More like art as activism. Art that says something about the world.” His hand finds mine, but not awkwardly like some teenage boys would do it. Just relaxed and nice. “I never told anyone that before.”

I remember how good his alpaca sketch was, and the blue, white and red paint the first time we kissed in the hallway. “Art as activism. Like Banksy?”

“Man, Banksy’s some white-ass bullshit. Sorry,” he apologizes hastily, as though he might’ve offended my white-ass feelings.

I nudge his shoulder playfully, trying to show he doesn’t even a little bit have to worry about that. “Why’s that?” I ask. He still looks wary. “I genuinely want to know,” I add, squeezing his hand.

“A’ight, so the dude flew out to Gaza to spray-paint a kitten on a house that’d been destroyed in an air strike. Like, the fuck? Talk about insensitive. Then our white savior has the audacity to call it art, to demand folks listen to his views on the atrocities of war, rather than the Palestinians who gotta live through it.” He shakes his head, his hand tensing and untensing in mine. “Sorry. Shit drives me crazy sometimes.”

“Don’t apologize,” I insist. “I love listening to you. And you’re right. That’s some white-ass bullshit.”

He laughs. “You’re cool, O’Neill. Maybe I’ll show you my work sometime.”