Page 19 of Misguided
What the fuck is wrong with me?
A downtrodden club princess, is what.
“What you havin’?” Callum asks as I come to a stop beside him.
“Usual.”
He orders for the both of us while I pick a table. A young girl eyeballs me while her parents engage in a heated debate across the booth from each other. I give her a mock salute, earning a smile as Callum sits down to my right.
“Makin’ friends again already?”
“I can’t help my naturally magnetic charm,” I tease.
He shakes his head, choosing to focus on the phone in his hand. “One day you’re gonna grow up, brother, and you won’t know what the fuck to do with yourself.”
I laugh, although on the inside it’s the exact opposite. He’s hit the nail on the head; everyone thinks I clown around because I’m some juvenile punk looking for attention. Maybe I am aiming for the limelight, but only because when you blind people with your outlandish behavior they tend to overlook the truth that’s right in front of their eyes.
I grew up a long time ago—way before any kid should have to.
“What does this one tell you, Koen?” My father jabs his finger at the table on the bottom of the stock market pages in the newspaper.
I study the graphs, the worm, and the historic figures detailed below. “Average price?”
“But for what?”
The longer I look at the table, the less sense it makes.
“Answer, boy. Time is precious.”
“I don’t know.”
He sighs, snapping the paper shut with such force the gust of wind it creates shifts the hair out of my eyes. “If you want to be of any use to me, you need to know this, Koen. No more Nintendo until you can explain every table on the page to me.”
How could I learn something I never had a passion for? Analyzing figures, working out patterns—it bored me. My hands itched to be used for something more tangible. My lungs ached for the crisp scent of pine on a damp spring morning. All I wanted to do was run through the fields between home and school, losing myself in the forest beyond until the sun shrank behind the hills.
I wanted to be a kid.
Yet he wanted a protégé.