The Heart of It All (HeartSick Series Book 1)

by Weston Mitchel

  He put on his nonchalant, brave face and acted for the world to see that he wasn’t set back by this setback, but inside he was pouring over every portion of every second that they had shared between them. All twenty three of them, from the moment she walked in the door at the coffee shop, through him scuttling Brian out the door and away from her, to the moment she turned tail and ran.

  There was nothing. Nothing, what in the world could have possibly have caused her to do that?

  Austin turned his head around one last time to look at his confusing crush in an attempt to show her no harm no foul. Hey, no biggie, so she doesn’t like me, whatever. She hadn’t given him a second glance since she went up the steps that led to her awaiting blackmailer.

  So be it.

  Austin never again had a class where he was so focused on the lecture that he didn’t drift off once in thought or in slumber. If nothing else but to prove to her that he hadn’t been bothered by the sleight in the slightest. Even more so, though, to prove to himself that he was now becoming an adult, and adults have to deal with distractions and carry on.

  Even if they were still confused as hell from that remarkably gorgeous distraction.

  Austin Falls

  After the day Austin had, he didn’t much feel like going out tonight, even if it was just to buy the dread-locked demon a quick dinner and get back to his apartment to study. Austin felt that he really didn’t owe the guy anything else, but Austin was a teenager of his word.

  Another moral handed down from his father, “Austin, a man that breaks his word, breaks the hearts of those around him without ever realizing it.”

  Besides, I bet the dude won’t even show up, and I can get back to my self-pity party post haste.

  Austin grimaced at himself in the mirror by the door and reviewed his last stream of thoughts. Did I just think the word post haste? Ok, so maybe I’m a bit of a nerd, just a teeny bit. Ugh, teeny? Really Austin?

  With that ounce of self-reflection over and done with he was out the door of his studio apartment and grudgingly headed off to meet with Brian Walters. The apartment was half paid for courtesy of his parents working countless hours of overtime and half paid for out of his savings that had piled up (more like puddled up) from his litany of jobs throughout high school.

  Austin planned on showing up about fifteen minutes early and then bouncing right at the stroke of 7:30. Or would it be more of a click, instead of stroke?

  That way he could say that he waited a bit for him to show up if he ever happened to cross paths with his non homeless hero again, and not be lying out right. He began to feel a bit ashamed for trying to dodge the guy. I mean he did save my bacon this morning.

  So Austin decided to show up at 7:20 instead, and give his bacon saver fifteen minutes to do the same or he was gone at the click of 7:35. Maybe 7:34.

  As Austin was just about to arrive at the spot he had mentally pictured waiting at on the way over, he looks up and sees the girl in the flower dress. She was leaning against a concrete pillar looking down at something glowing in her hand. Only now she is wearing some zig zag type of print dress that’s tight up top but long and flowing from her torso down. The pattern reminds Austin of Charlie brown’s shirt, he knows there’s a word for it but can’t remember what that is, and no cartoon had ever looked so good.

  She could give Jessica Rabbit a run for her money for Miss Toonsville.

  Austin thought she was stunning before, but like this, dressed up for the evening, she was breathtaking, figuratively speaking and literally. Austin could now attest to that as he was finding it hard to keep his breathing normal while walking past her, trying not to trip over his own feet while doing so.

  He wasn’t prepared to see her again so soon, and hadn’t the time to prepare something to say to her, much less think of a whole conversation. The spot he was heading straight to was taken by her, and he knew he couldn’t just do an about face or even a less dramatic angle away without looking like it was on purpose.

  I could slap my forehead with my palm, and turn off running like I had forgot to turn off my hotplate or something.

  In the last moment he decided against it, straightened his slouch and kept walking right past her just feet away from her billowing dress, to a spot a few yards away and leaned against another similar looking pillar. Only the pillar wasn’t there anymore, at least it wasn’t where he thought it was. He had been too focused on the girl and his backside missed leaning on it by about a foot.

  Since his eyes had never left her figure, he watched as her head popped up like a grazing deer hearing twigs crunching under a boot, just as his ass met pavement. Austin was now gathering himself off the ground for the second time today, and the pain in his tailbone was battling his rising embarrassment to see which would make his voice quiver first.

  The girl rushed over to him with widened eyes and one hand placed firmly by her side to keep the wind at bay so as to not raise her dress. Something that would definitely be posted on another social site, but for different reasons other than pointing and laughing. She even makes mall walking look graceful, he thought as she held out a hand to help to him up the rest of the way.

  “You ok?” she asked.

  He looked at her proffered hand but wasn’t about to take it. For one he was pretty much standing on his own already and for another he was still a bit peeved from her outward insult in class.

  “Yeah, I guess… thanks,” Austin replied.

  “You sure? From over there it kinda looked like you hit pretty hard, is your-“

  “I’m ok, I promise,” he interrupted her a bit harsher than he intended to, but he was already embarrassed enough without having to rehash it with her blow by blow.

  “If you say so,” she said with raised eyebrows, simultaneously rolling her eyes and turning around. This trifecta of body language telling him to screw off, and left him in his humiliated state.

  Austin felt this might be his last chance to salvage any kind of resemblance at getting acquainted with her in any form, so he quickly blurted out, “Hey! Uhm, sorry… for snapping like that. Just a little embarrassed is all.”

  He said this while looking at the ground not able to gather the testicular fortitude just yet to look directly in her eyes. Maybe in fear they would melt him like superman’s laser beam eyes or possibly worse, they could make his knees go weaker than they already were and then he would have his third meeting with the concrete in one day.

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry?” he replied more confused than ever.

  “Yeah, you said that already, but why are you embarrassed? Is it because the girl of your dreams just watched you crack your tailbone?”

  “That’s pretty much exactly it, yes,” he said as calmly and smooth as he could manage which was getting increasingly harder every second that passed.

  Am I blushing from the fall or from her calling me out? I’m gonna go with both.

  “So, you’re pretty confident in yourself, huh?” He asked wanting to divert any attention away from himself, but also feeling he might have just pushed his almost nonexistent luck a little too hard with that last bit.

  “Nope,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders, “just hopeful.”

  At hearing this Austin was finally able to take his eyes off his shoelaces and looked directly into her big brown eyes.

  Holy shit, did I just hear that right? Are her eyes actually sparkling right now, I thought that was just in the movies. Not to mention, how is that even possible we’re in the shade? And what do I even say to that? What would Joe smooth from class say to her after hearing that? Wait…

  “What about Joe smooth from this morning and yall’s date on Friday night?”

  “What are you talking about? And did you just say y’all? That’s cute,” she said with a giggle that wasn’t insulting at all but pretty damn cute in its own regard.

  And now I’m cute, or at least my words are cute, I can work with that, something to build on. Something to …wai
t.

  “You know, Mr. Champ. The big dumb bohunk in class this morning that’s taking you out Friday night cause you apparently couldn’t bare the thought of having to sit next to me.”

  “First of all, I really was sorry about that in class, it had absolutely nothing to do with you. I swear” she said then followed it with “I’m just, I don’t know what to call it, front-row-aphobic, or something.”

  “Front-row-aphobic?”

  “Yeah, look, obviously it’s not a real word or whatever but that’s how it feels. I’m terrified of sitting on the first row,” she said, now the one looking embarrassed, but only for a moment.

  “When I’m in the front, or hell even the second or third row sometimes, I can’t concentrate, and I start to hyperventilate and it feels like the whole world is crashing in around me from all sides at once and I just, I can’t handle it. I know it’s stupid, I don’t even know why it happens, but it does.”

  The roles quickly reversed, she was the one now looking at her toes, not able to look him in the eyes, but then without giving Austin a chance to respond, her head popped up and she was back to her perky self.

  “And second of all, do you really think I would let some rando’ bo hunk blackmail me into a date because he moved seats? Yeah… no thanks. A real man doesn’t need trickery to ask a girl out, he just does it,” she said now looking directly in Austin’s eyes, confidence returned. “Besides, I don’t wanna be abducted and thrown into a trunk the first week of school, do I?”

  “Yeah, you’re right, that’s more of a spring break type thing.”

  Mia squinted her big round eyes and returned Austin’s smile, tilting her head wondering how good his sense of humor really is as she said “Yeah, I’m not making that mistake again… took me forever to get out of that basement.”

  Austin laughed right away which made her smile even brighter, wider.

  Okay, Austin, time to be a man already and ask the girl out.

  “Uh, hey, so I was-”

  “Sup brotato chip, ready for our date?”

  Austin turned around at the voice walking up behind him trying not to let his shoulders sink in disappointment too noticeably when he saw Brian.

  Well shit. Of course right now is when he would show up. Just needed thirty seconds, thirty more friggin…

  “Damn dude, ain’t that the smoke bomb from Starbuck’s this morning. Ya know the one you bout lost your load over?” Brian asked this in a half-hearted attempt at a whisper looking at Austin while jutting his chin out pointing at Mia. Austin and Mia both seemed to blush at this simultaneously.

  Currently Brian was the only one in the group not studying the pattern of the pavement. A clueless onlooker might think they were praying to a god the tall hairy one didn’t believe in. No telling how long this awkward silent prayer might have lasted, had Mia’s friend not shown up to join the congregation.

  “Hey girl, sorry I’m late,” the new girl said with a curt smile then looked at the guys and asked “Who are these two?”

  “Oh, this is… uh, well actually, I’m not quite sure who these people are,” she said smiling tight-lipped at Austin.

  God, I love that smile. Are her eyes smiling too?

  With a quick nod of her head she added, “Not their names at least.”

  Before Austin could get a word out, Brian had already reached out his hand to the new addition and said “Brian Walters, nice to meet you.”

  As she put her hand in his, Brian quickly turned it over, bent slightly at the waist and kissed the back of her hand. He straightened, letting go of her hand and put his arm around Austin’s shoulders drawing him into a sort of brotherly side hug as if they had known each other all of their lives and boasted “This is my good friend Austin Kyle, or A.K. as he likes to be called from time to time.”

  A.K.? What the hell is he doing and where did this Brian 2.0 come from?

  “And you two are?” Brian asked both of them, but he never took his eyes off the new girl. As cheesy and over the top as his new persona was, she seemed to be falling for it. The new girl was all smiles and likewise her eyes were only focused on this new adaptation of Brian.

  “I’m Ashley.”

  Austin stood there, waiting for her to say what her friends name was, which was the only name he cared about at the moment, but it never came. Whether she had forgot about her friend entirely or just didn’t want to take the attention off herself and put it on her friend for fear of losing Brian’s gaze, Austin wasn’t sure. This left Austin’s target of affection without a warm friendly introduction the likes that he received from Brian.

  “And I’m Mia,” she said Interjecting her way into the conversation, as she swept the hair that was dangling down on the right side of her face behind the cup of her ear. At this gesture Austin realized he had been holding his breath waiting for her to say her name.

  Mia.

  The name that would forever be on his mind from this moment until his dying breath. Unbeknownst to this new quartet of doe-eyed teens, so full of hope for the night to come, was in the not too distant future.

  Day After

  “Yo, A.K., we gotta get movin’ or we’re gonna be late,” shouted Brian through the door.

  Austin’s eyes stayed closed but he was awake at the moment of hearing Brian’s voice. Memories of the night before with Mia, some clear, some hazy, and some missing came flooding over his mind. He didn’t want to open his eyes just yet, he wanted a few more seconds of her face, of the nervous, excited feeling, of the touch of her fingers crisscrossing his as they held hands. The one thing that made him eager to start the new day was the chance at getting to see her again.

  Austin rolled over to look at the clock on his bedside table and only saw a bright red 12:00 flashing back at him. His apartment must have lost power for some reason throughout the night. He remembered it raining on and off throughout the day but nothing serious enough to knock out the power.

  “What time is it?” he yelled back through the door at Brian as he walked to his closet hoping he had something clean and not too wrinkled to throw on.

  “It’s 8:30, but I fixed us up a little breakfast while you were snoozing. If you hurry we should have time to eat,” Brian said as he walked back to the kitchen to start eating his own breakfast.

  He cooked breakfast? With what? I’m pretty sure the only thing I have in the fridge is ketchup and BBQ packets from Chik-fil-a. Maybe a few cup-of-noodles in the cabinet, the ones with little pieces of dried shrimp, bleh.

  A shiver went down his body at the thought of those noodles, the leftovers from a big variety pack he bought last weekend.

  Since Austin never put up his laundry in a timely manner, most of his closet looked like a wrinkle bomb had exploded in there. He threw on semi-clean clothes that he never got around to washing but still passed the smell test and walked in the kitchen.

  Austin was pleasantly surprised by what was waiting for him on the counter. Not a feast by any stretch of the imagination, but to a freshman on a tattered shoe string budget it was close. Next to a full solo cup of orange juice was a paper plate with two pieces of bread on it. The center of the bread had been cut out in a near perfect circle and replaced with what looked like an egg cooked sunny side up.

  “It’s called egg-in-a-hole, ya know, just my way of saying thanks for lettin’ me crash on the couch last night,” said Brian.

  “Sweet!” Austin replied picking up a plastic fork and dug in.

  “It’s a helluva lot better with cheese, but I didn’t have enough scratch on me to cover it all so I had to put it back.”

  At this last exchange Brian turned away, not able to look Austin directly, embarrassed for not being able to afford shredded cheese to go along with a pint of juice, some eggs and bread.

  Austin was never very good at dealing with awkward moments in life, usually whatever he did to alleviate the situation just made the instance feel more awkward. After the night he had with Mia, however, he felt a tad more confident t
han he normally did, a little less timid.

  “Dude it’s all good, this e-hole is amazeballs. So… thanks bud,” he said as he took another bite letting the warm yolk coat his parched morning mouth, and the slight crunch from the toasted bread was a welcome fusion on his taste buds.

  “Ah-ite cool man, well, scarf it down cuz we gots to go. I’ll be outside with my cancer stick when you’re ready.”

  Austin guzzled down the last bit of his juice and replied “Just gotta grab a few things and I’ll be right out.”

  He ran back to his room and lifted the cover on his roll-top desk that his dad had purchased at a garage sale when Austin was in his terrible twos and his mom had sanded and repainted at least a half dozen times since. Austin had always loved that desk.

  When he sat behind it as a kid it made him feel important, made him feel like an adult. As he grew older he imagined himself a young, more sarcastic Mark Twain using a laptop instead of a typewriter. Once he fell in love with astronomy he became Galileo or Cassini.

  The year Austin turned 13 it had been a particularly tough time financially on his parents. His father, James Kyle, had recently been laid off from his job in the oilfield. The Kyle family could either pay the electric bill or buy their son a present. What good was an Xbox one game when there was no power in the house?

  James used the guise of a family tradition to pass something down to Austin on the boy’s 13th birthday. His dad thought for sure he would be disappointed in it, and silently wrestled with the idea of giving him nothing but a promise of a gift as soon as “things turned around”. What thirteen year old boy wanted a hand me down garage sale desk, but he couldn’t just give him a well-meaning, yet sad-hearted I.O.U.

  The night before his birthday, Austin’s father poured his heart and sweat and a few small drops of his blood from a nasty chiseling incident, into adding a couple new features to the desk. He locked himself in the garage once everyone was asleep and began to tear out the drawers and pulled off the roll top portion of the desk.