Page 30 of Possibly Texas

“Thanks.”

That’s all he had to say about the scarf.

“So, uh,” I tried to think of a way to keep Auguste talking, “what exactly is this town’s deal?”

“What?”

“Like,” I said, trying to be careful with my words, “everything’s…so different…than everywhere else I’ve been. Maybe, since you’ve lived here forever, you can tell me about everything? Um, show me around?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean, I guess.” Auguste’s eyes were suddenly fixed on something at the end of the street by the post office. “I mean, I’m kind of busy today, but tomorrow?”

“Sure.” I smiled, relieved that Auguste hadn’t scoffed at my suggestion. “I really have nothing to do, so if you—”

“Hey,” he interjected, “I have to go. I’ll come by Jack’s tomorrow morning? We can walk around together?”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. Sounds good. Auguste.”

“Cool.” Auguste was already in motion, ducking past me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I turned to watch Auguste hurry away from The Pueblo and me. He walked down the side of the road towards the post office, his head down. A frown formed on my face as I considered how quickly he had dashed away. Even though he had agreed to show me around town and tell me a little bit about the place, it had seemed to make him nervous. Maybe he didn’t intend to actually show up at Jack’s the next day at all? Maybe he had just said that as a nice way to get out of talking to someone he thought was a weirdo?

My eyes trailed along the street, looking up towards the post office, and I finally spotted what had caught Auguste’s attention when we had been standing together. The group of teenage boys from the clearing in the woods were walking down the street towards Auguste, laughing and joking. I started to cringe, wondering what would happen when they passed Auguste on the street. Would they shove him? Point at his scarf belt and laugh?

As the small group of boys drew closer to Auguste, he kept his head down, staring at the road beneath his feet. However, the boys had already taken notice of Auguste and were getting closer and closer to him. My whole body was tensing up, waiting to see what would happen. I’ve never really had to consider what I would do if I saw someone being bullied. Would I run for help? Jump in and help the bullied? Would I run and pretend I hadn’t seen anything?

I didn’t have to think about it for long. As he made his way by Starbuck’s, Auguste started to pass the group of boys. My whole body was like a board as I waited for the inevitable. But something strange happened.

“Hey, Auggie!” One of the boys announced in the distance, raising his hand.

Auguste didn’t look up from the road beneath his feet, but he raised his hand to give the other kid a high-five. The other two boys chimed in with ‘heys’ as well, and the group of boys passed Auguste without any issue. I frowned to myself, not unhappy with what had happened, but confused by the nice display between the boys and Auguste.

Possibly was so weird.

But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

When I got back to Jack’s place, he was nowhere to be found, yet again. I checked the floor by his bedroom door. He hadn’t left me a note. I could hear him moving around in his room, so I almost knocked to make sure that he was okay. That we were okay. Instead, I went up to my room and checked my phone.

No messages.

No calls.

No signal.

I climbed up and sat on my bed and stared out the window at Possibly.

Knocking, somewhere off in the distance, woke me up the following morning. Wrapped up like a burrito in the covers on my bed, it took a second for me to even realize where I was. I didn’t even remember having gone to bed the night before. Time slowly came back to me as the knocking continued in the distance, muffled by walls and floor. The previous day’s events filled my head, and I realized that I had spent most of the afternoon on my bed, watching Possibly through a glass filter. At one point, I had wandered downstairs for a sandwich and some chips—Jack had a pretty good selection of snack foods—and then ate on my bed while reading a book on my phone. I hadn’t needed a signal to read any of the books I’d saved.

Sometime, probably around midnight, after checking out the greenish glow coming from the roof of Auguste’s barn, I’d fallen back in bed. My instincts had obviously kicked in and my body had wrapped itself up in the covers. The room was stuffy, warm early morning Texas heat already making the temperature rise in my attic bedroom.

When the knocking continued and my ears adjusted enough to being awake that I realized it was coming from the front door, I tried to pry myself out of the covers. Thrashing and ripping—not unamused by the tangle I’d gotten myself in—I extracted my body from the bed. I yanked on some basketball shorts and a t-shirt and exited my room.

In bare feet, I padded down the first flight of stairs, hoping whoever was at the door wouldn’t give up before I could answer their knocking. However, on the second-floor landing, I glanced over and noticed that Jack’s bedroom door was open at the end of the hall. Golden sunlight was streaming through his window, bathing the room in the warm yellow of the early morning hours. As I stood there, I realized the knocking at the front door had stopped, and a voice had replaced the noise.

I skipped down the bottom flight of stairs, finding Jack at the open front door across the room from me. Sunlight framed him in a halo, so I couldn’t really see who was at the door. I had to slink across the living room and glance around him to find out who had woken us both. Jack was fully dressed, though, so he might have been awake when the person came knocking. When I rounded Jack, I saw that the mysterious knocker was actually Auguste.

When he said he’d come to Jack’s, he hadn’t mentioned it would be so early. It was barely seven o’clock in the morning.

“—yeah,” Auguste was speaking to Jack, obviously continuing a conversation I had walked in on, “Jordan asked me if I’d show him around town.”