Page 10 of Hurry Up And Wait

“I bet he has a mistress.”

“You can’t have a mistress if you’re not married.”

“Says who?”

“Says history!”

“Not true. A mistress is just a woman of the night. A concubine, a?—”

I spun around suddenly and they crashed into me since they weren’t paying attention. “Nobody has a mistress. I’m not discussing this with you further, so stop fucking asking.”

They both stared at me, their lips pressed tight. I knew it wasn’t over. They were bursting at the seams to find out what was going on.

It was Eli who broke first. “Just tell us the truth…Is your dad secretly a gay ice dancer?”

Rolling my eyes, I turned around and stomped my way to the mansion.

“What? It’s a valid question! A lot of senators would hide shit like that!”

I heard their footsteps trailing after me. They weren’t giving up by a long shot, and the longer I went without answering them, the more scenarios they came up with.

My mother was secretly a Russian spy.

I was adopted and they wanted to keep it a secret because they stole me as a child.

My dad was responsible for Chernobyl.

Mom was really a witch and Harry Potter was based on her life.

And my personal favorite…They were time travelers and came from the year 2525 and were really here to stop the age of robots.

I marched through the mansion, foregoing my old bedroom andheading out the front door. If I stopped, they would just continue to hassle me, but if I kept going, I could lose them eventually. They would lose interest if I just kept walking into town.

Of course, by the time I got to the end of the driveway, they were still with me.

“Where are you going? You know you have a truck!” Red shouted.

“I’m walking!” I shouted.

“Where you goin’, Forest?”

“That boy sure is a runnin’ full.”

“That’s not the line,” Red scoffed.

“Yes, it is. He’s running full because he has the speed.”

“No, he’s a running fool. He’s a fool for running.”

That wasn’t at all what it meant.

“Why would he be a fool for running?” Eli asked. “Clearly, he wasn’t a fool because he was faster than everyone else.”

“Obviously, they think he’s a fool because he runs everywhere.”

“That makes him a fool because he runs everywhere. Not, he’s a fool because he runs everywhere,” Eli snapped.

“That’s the same fucking thing!”