Mind Blind Short Story: Fifteen Minutes to Friendship

                Class ended ten minutes ago. He’s still talking.

                Antigone and Cassandra are waiting for me. I broke the speed limit to get home during lunch break, but the twenty-minute walk that gave me with them wasn’t long enough. After almost a year of the shelter, the girls deserve—they need—to be introduced to new places. Maybe even new people, if Cassandra isn’t in one of her moods.

                I glance at the clock: twelve minutes since class ended. He’s still talking.

                I heft my bookbag higher onto my shoulder and take several steps towards the door, but he follows me without pausing for breath. How can one person have so many words? Given the way that his eyes never focus on my face and instead flick around the room like a caged street cat, he seems to have even more thoughts than he has words. I wonder if he finds his own mind to be exhausting.

                He says something that sounds like a question, his voice lilting higher at the end. I nod and take another step towards the door. He laughs.

                “My condolences on your condition,” he says with a sudden smirk, and I realize that my nod was a misstep. I don’t have to wait long to learn what I just inattentively agreed to, as he follows up with: “Thankfully syphilis is treatable nowadays. Poor Nietzsche, though.”

                This man is my partner, but I don’t understand him at all.

                Parker—Glitch, he insists on being called, for reasons which I haven’t bothered to ask—slings an arm over my shoulders. I force myself not to flinch at the sudden touch. His gesture of comradery is the closest I’ve received to a hug since my grandmother’s death four years ago. Sensing my unease, Glitch immediately withdraws his arm.

                “I’m a lot for you, aren’t I?” he asks with a note of sympathy.

                I nod.

                His smirk blossoms into a broad smile. I think that it’s genuine. “I like honest people,” he states. “You and I are going to be friends.”

                “Do I have a choice?” The acerbic comeback pops out of my mouth before I can stop it, shocking me even more than Glitch. When was the last time that I spoke impulsively? My words reflect upon my father, as he constantly reminds me, and I’ve grown accustomed to evaluating every sentence like a jeweler who inspects common pebbles for flaws.

                I glance once more at the clock: fourteen minutes since class ended. I should be home by now; Antigone and Cassandra must be worrying. Did I leave them enough water?

                “Am I annoying you that much?” Glitch asks, and for the first time his joking tone isn’t fully intact. “You keep checking the clock like Cinderella trying to escape the ballroom.”              

                “My dogs need me,” I say.

                Glitch's expressions brightens, wiping away all traces of vulnerability as if it had never existed. “You have dogs?” His voice is excited, and all of a sudden I don’t find him so annoying.

                According to the clock, fifteen minutes have passed since Instructor Kim released class. My next question to Glitch is mostly out of expediency, but also because I approve of the hopeful glint in his eyes.

                “Want to meet them?”

              "More than lunch with Herman Melville!” Glitch exclaims, then clarifies, “Which is to say, yes! I’d love to.” He grabs his own book bag, which bulges in odd lumps and looks three times the weight of my own, and begins striding towards the door.

                “Pick up the pace, Nox!” he calls over his shoulder. “The dogs are waiting.”