The Heart of It All (HeartSick Series Book 1)

by Weston Mitchel

  “Man, y’all better feel real lucky that every eye at this school is watching what I do!” said Randle in that deep baritone voice that could double as an arch nemesis in a superhero movie.

  I do, I feel extremely lucky, bout to go play the lotto right now.

  He gave my bearded bodyguard a slight shove to the shoulder with his elbow jutted out as he started walking off, in an obvious attempt to push the man over the edge and into a fight, or maybe it was just to let them both know who the top dog was. Austin put his right hand up in the stop or my mom will shoot gesture, with his left hand on white Bob Marley’s shoulder urging him to stay calm.

  Starbuck's

  “Dude, I can’t believe you thought I was homeless and drunk at like eight in the morning, that’s a bit too early even for me!” said Austin’s new friend from across the table at Starbuck’s. Then he added “I was just takin a few swigs, hair of the dog and all that shit. That way I wouldn’t hurl before my first class was over.”

  “Yeah, well I wish you would have at least told me about the not being homeless part before accepting my offer to buy you a meal for saving my ass back there,” Austin replied with a shrug.

  “Hey man, a guy’s gotta eat, besides homeless or not I don’t think a stale lemon bar and a frap qualifies as a meal,” Brian said with a big shit-eating grin on his face.

  So as Austin just found out, the homeless man was not quite as homeless as once believed, nor was he a man truthfully. He is definitely all male with testosterone oozing out of his pores, but a male that had never matured into a man, or even a young adult at that.

  It had only been fifteen minutes since they met in what will now be referred to in Austin’s mind for the rest of his short life as “The Great Bum Rush Incident of 2016”. Already, in that period of time he had come to believe that he just might possibly be the most vulgar person on the planet. Some of what he said was funny in a weird way, but most was just outright embarrassing.

  Brian Walters seemed to have a tough outer shell like a coconut, but Austin wasn’t sure if he had the sweetness inside to go along with it. Better yet, Brian was like that first sip of beer around your group of friends. You didn’t want anyone to know that you thought it was the most god awful thing you had ever tasted so you put on a brave face, swallowed the horse piss down, and raved about how great it was. Eventually, you weren’t lying anymore, not only were you used to the taste but hell you liked the crap, almost craved it on Saturday nights.

  Yeah, Brian was like that. He just took some getting used to in order to realize that behind every “look at that bitch” or “ fuck that shit” was a guy who stood up for some random stranger about to get his butt kicked and risk getting his face stomped in by a newly discovered gigantopithicus. All the while the random stranger that was being defended had been prejudging him the whole time as a drunken vagrant.

  At this moment, however, Austin wasn’t at the getting used to it stage. He was still at the hiding the bitter face during the first drink step. Inwardly cringing at every “I’d tap that”, literally milliseconds after an attractive girl would walk past not only still within earshot, but most likely within range of being able to feel his breath as he articulated his brilliance aloud.

  Austin wasn’t quite sure what Brian thought might happen when these girls heard him. Was he just playing the odds that one day there will be a woman who will hear this and abruptly turn around and say “Yes, please tap this, right here, right now!”? Like a modern day Romeo and Juliet, where it used to be telling her how her beauty shines so bright she makes the moon jealous, and wooing and wowing her for days on end and starting a war for her and eventually killing yourself for her because you can’t imagine this mortal coil without her on it.

  Now it’s so far removed from that, that it’s barely recognizable anymore. Before you even get to know each other’s names, now, to ponder if they would still smell as sweet, she says “you wanna?” and he says “Of course I wanna, what took you so long?”. By morning they part with such sweet sorrow never to see each other’s visage again. Shakespeare probably isn’t just rolling over in his grave, he just landed a front handspring that could have earned him a perfect ten in the last Olympics.

  “Yo, turd nugget, snap out of it. Like I said you owe me more than just this piece of shit breakfast for saving you back there.”

  “Uh, yeah of course man, anytime just lemme know,” responded Austin. At first, he had figured it was the least he could do to help the guy out. Either being incredibly late to class or skip it entirely so he could repay his favor with a good meal was a small price to pay. However, now it was starting to feel like it was the utmost he should have done.

  Austin was trying to figure out a way to go ahead and leave before either of them had finished their “meal” without being rude. Then again, Austin thought, I doubt this dude gives a damn about rudeness, he definitely doesn’t seem to care about being crude.

  Austin scooted his chair out from under the table, abruptly stood up and said “Alright, I’ll see you around bud, I gotta get to class.”

  Brian let out a gruff sigh and said “Yeah, whatever you say, bud!” with as much sarcasm as could be spared from the rest of his life dripping onto that last word. Possibly as a final attempt to get a rise out of him, but Austin thought it there might be more to it than that. Did I really just hurt the guy’s feelings? Maybe there is a soft, sweet chunk under the shell after all. Well… softish.

  “Tell you what, how about we meet up later outside the cactus cafe, like 7:30? Maybe we can find some trouble to get into.” Austin regretted using those exact words as soon as he said them. Hope he doesn’t think I mean ACTUAL trouble.

  “Sure, that sounds alright” said Brian. Except the way he said alright, made it sound like the l and the r were left out, and came out sounding like ah-ite. Austin could tell that he was more than pleased to be invited out but obviously couldn’t show any outward emotion revealing this.

  Austin started to walk off from the table, when he heard the bell ringing at the front door announcing to the workers that another customer had just walked in. Out of habit from when he worked at the local sandwich shop back in his hometown to help pay for his first car, he glanced towards the door to see who was walking in.

  His eyes widened just a bit, and his heart did a jitter bug in his chest before regaining its normal rhythm, almost like he choked on his own spit for half a second. Whoa, calm down boy, he inwardly pleaded to his heart and every other muscle, in his body.

  The girl that walked in was definitely a head turner, but luckily for him he was already facing her. Otherwise his head might have kept on spinning around flying off like a cheap toy you twirl by sliding your hands together. Instead of two plastic blades, his tongue that was hanging out slightly would have caught the updraft launching his noggin into the sky.

  She wasn’t dressed up nor had she looked as if she spent all morning doing her hair and makeup, in fact she looked a bit disheveled with her long brown hair flying all about from the wind rushing in before the door finally closed. Her book bag was slung over her left shoulder, and the weight of it pushed down the spaghetti string straps from her sundress. Still she looked like she could jump right in the middle of a photo shoot and be on the cover of FHM or Maxim. Maybe with the words The Girl Next Door All Grown Up, right above her picture in big bold comic sans font, basically the headline from every men’s magazine ever.

  The girl was roughly Austin’s height, meaning there was quite a bit of tanned skin he was currently trying not to ogle at showing from the bottom of her dress down to her flip flops. The dress was short but not in a trashy “damn girl, there are kids around” way. It was just short enough to get the hint of an idea through, without being short enough to flesh the whole idea out.

  “Dude, you okay?” Brian chuckled loudly, then continued “You look a little… Whoa!” Brian found what was piquing Austin’s interest and craned his neck around to follow it across the room.


  Damn it! Austin cringed as he started to think about the million and one ill-mannered remarks that was about to spew from Brian’s mouth any moment. Not only embarrassing the hell out of him, but also single handedly, or single-wordedly, end any chance, no matter how extremely slight that Austin had at making a decent first impression.

  You only get one chance at a first impression, he could hear his mother telling him over and over again in the back of his head. He had previously thought he understood that old adage back then, but that was back in a town and a time when you just never saw anyone new to make an impression upon. Everyone in town knew each other at birth it seemed and by the time you were 6 years old your impression was stuck in stone.

  So before Brian could open his mouth and taint the first meeting with his poisoned words, Austin leaned over and clasped his hand over Brian’s mouth.

  Fully inside the door now, out of the wind, the girl adjusted the bag on her shoulder, then ran a hand over her hair patting down the strays. As she started walking their way Brian struggled to get a word out, but managed nothing more than a couple indistinguishable sounds that were reminiscent of the adults lecturing in a Charlie brown cartoon.

  A one sided smile ever so slightly began to grow on her face as she watched Austin trying to wrestle Brian’s chin and mouth. A single eyebrow raising in approval over her dancing brown eyes as she tossed Austin a casual “hey” while breezing past Austin and kept on walking to the counter.

  A split second after she passed him a small whisper of a wind rushed by Austin with a smell of strawberries and honey that left him sneakily sniffing the air for seconds after trying to recapture the scent.

  Austin raised his right hand like he was giving the ghost of former barista a high five and replied with a very astute and very late “Hey,”.

  The girl was already at the counter by the time he said this, meaning his not so subtle response was more to her back than anything. Austin had resigned to the fact that if he was ever going to be able to get up the nerve to say anything more than hey to her, he was going to need to be prepared for it. Preferably without his hand firmly attached to an ogre’s mouth.

  Austin removed his somewhat damp hand from Brian’s face, but before he allowed Brian the chance to speak, he gave him the librarian shush gesture with his finger on his lips realizing too late he should have used the hand that wasn’t recently covering a pot of stewing saliva.

  Wiping his lips off with the other hand, he quietly tried to shoo off any remaining residue on his lips with quick bursts of air like one might do if a piece of fuzz had landed on their mouth. Unintentionally making a helicopter sound reverberate through the coffee shop, this got the attention from the girl at the counter that his belated “hey” wasn’t able to accomplish.

  Austin raised his hand for another invisible high five and thought against it, turning his focus to Brian, grabbed him by the shoulders coaxing him out of his chair, rushing him towards the door.

  Austin glanced back to see if she was still watching this bad Benny Hill skit play out, which of course she was. He nodded to her then tipped an invisible hat and continued to force Brian out the door.

  Once Austin believed they were far enough away from the coffeehouse that no one would have a chance to hear anything coming from Brian he finally stopped the shoving and Brian let out a “What in the black Jesus was that all about?”.

  “There was no way I was about to let you tell her how you like it, or how you have dibs or whatever bullshit perverted thing you had waiting to jump out from behind my hand!”

  “Broseph! You might not know me from your asshole, but even I wouldn’t do that to you. I saw the way you were drooling over her.”

  “Yeah, well today’s not exactly the day I need to be testing my luck if you know what I’m saying. Anyway, I gotta get to class, see ya tonight.”

  “Ah-ite, I’ll be considering all of my options for my reward dinner until then,” Brian said throwing up a lazy sideways peace sign as he walked off.

  Something told Austin way back in the deep part of his mind, where his parent’s lectures and catch-phrases hid, that any guy that was needing some hair of the dog on a Wednesday morning, might not exactly be the best fit to help keep him on track as he was striking out his own for the first time.

  Then again, another one of those truisms tucked away back there was a quote that came scratching to the top of his mind. He’s not quite sure where he heard it from, but it was definitely not one of his parents’ sayings. You don’t always get to pick your friends.

  First Class

  Austin opened the door to his first class of the day, and since he was now eighteen minutes late he did so slowly and quietly, not wanting to disturb the class that was already in session. The hinges had other ideas, not ideas of stealth and secrecy like Austin, but those of loud groans and creaks of ungreased years sent bellowing throughout the lecture hall.

  As all eyes turned towards him, Austin gave a slight head nod in apology to the professor at the front of the class, and looked for an open seat. There were only two, both on the very front row feet away from the professor and his teacher’s assistant. With all thoughts of anonymity gone out the window after his arrival had been announced by the door’s hinges, he reluctantly resigned to not only having to walk in front of the entire class, but also take the most abhorred seat in doing so.

  The very first row came with its own set of challenges. It’s hard to stay completely focused on anything for over an hour without your thoughts wandering to places you know they shouldn’t be wandering to. In Austin’s experience as soon your wandering thoughts get firmly planted at their destination is when the teacher chooses to call on you.

  Some teachers have a real knack for picking out the daydreamers, mid-daydream, to have them answer a question about what that teacher had been droning on about for the last fifteen minutes. Usually getting nothing in return but the doe in headlights look or some vague answer that covers all the bases when the student was so deep in thought that he barely heard the question to begin with.

  Sitting in the front row meant you were almost twice as likely to be called on, a certain possibility when the contemplator’s face can be seen clearly throughout the entire time in that seat.

  I will definitely be getting here early on Thursday to make sure I’m not stuck in this seat all sem-

  CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

  This time Austin was on the good end of everyone turning in unison to see what was causing that blasphemy of sound coming from behind them. Unlike when Austin did it, however, this person didn’t seem embarrassed or out of place, she just scanned the room looking for an open seat, like she was used to being the subject of attention from half a hundred people at once. Someone that shined so bright had to be used it.

  Holy crapoli, that’s the girl from Starbucks, Austin thought as he raised his hand to get her attention, then pointed to the seat right next to him. Normally he didn’t think he would be so brave to call attention to himself, much less offer up a seat right next to him but really she had no choice. It was literally the only place to sit, so there was no cause to worry about rejection, done deal.

  When the nameless beauty in the flower dress saw Austin pointing at the chair next to him, she gave him a half-hearted quick smile and continued walking towards the front. As she got to the point where she would have to turn left to start heading towards Austin and the gilded empty seat, his mouth and throat dried up and he almost choked on saliva that wasn’t there when he tried to swallow.

  I’m gonna have to at least say something to her when she gets over here, relax Austin, just another girl. Just another extremely hot girl… in a short dress… with long legs… sitting right next to me. I guess the front row has its perks after all.

  At that exact moment, coinciding with the end of his last thought, the girl spun on her heels and walked back up three levels. When she had felt she had gotten far enough she leaned over and whispered into some guy’s ear who was in
the aisle seat of the fourth row. After some inaudible back and forth between the two, the guy shrugged and said one more unheard sentence, stood up and casually walked down the steps to the front row, grinning ear to ear all the way down.

  As he slid into the seat that was once reserved for the girl in a flower dress, he looked at Austin and said “Think I just got myself a date, champ!” and made that little double clicking sound with his tongue and a pistol with his thumb and forefinger like he was shooting an invisible pigeon out of the air.

  Austin hated when people did that, even more so at this moment. Austin must have looked as perplexed as a dog with his head cocked to one side trying to figure out why his human was harvesting his poop. His new seat buddy could see that Austin hadn’t caught on, so he leaned over and followed it up with a whispered “Apparently she’s far-sighted or something and can’t sit too close to the white board, so I told her she could have my seat if she let me take her to The Rock’s new movie Friday night… and that’s how it’s done.”

  With that he sat back up straight and nodded to the teacher as if he was now giving permission to begin the class again.

  So, that’s how it’s done? With bribing? What a maroon, he thought in a bugs bunny voice at the end.

  As much as Austin wanted to think the guy was a complete idiot, but he was the one with a date this Friday night. Austin leaned his head over to the right looking like he was scratching his ear with his shoulder but what he was really doing was sniffing his armpits to see if he remembered to spray on the smell good this morning. Which I did.

  Then he leaned over the opposite direction to check out if anyone could see any evidence of what was left behind on that park bench on his shorts. Austin knew he was never really capable of understanding the female mind but even that couldn’t account for the way she turned and scurried off into the arms, or at least for now, ears of this galoof.