The Weight of Forgiveness by Alada Porter (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📖

The first time I saw him he was climbing out of my bedroom window, feet first, my blue mini-fridge nestled precariously under his left armpit as he attempted to limbo his way out onto the roof.


My hand seemed to be glued to the light switch, I blinked hard, trying to better process the situation. My heart was too shocked to beat in a normal manner so it simply jumped sporadically against my sternum.


“W-What are you doing?” I finally managed. The words seemed to hover in the air a moment, and we both looked up to examine them.


“Well, currently, I'm taking your fridge,” he replied after some consideration, slowly shimming his way out the window as he spoke. As though I wouldn’t notice.


“Would you please stop that.”


He stopped, and with a sigh let go of the mini-fridge. I watched in horror as it hit my hardwood floor, forcing the door to open and causing all of the food and drinks I had been saving for later to spill out.


He made an apologetic face as the bottles rolled across the floor.


“Oops.”


We were frozen there for a time, our eyes locked as he tried to decide if he should run and I tried to work up the gumption to call the cops.


But looking at him I felt kind of bad, he was so skinny and scraggly looking. His eyes were sharp and shifty, like a hungry alley cat, and his hair was caked with dirt. I found myself wondering when the last time he had eaten was and before I knew it I was walking over to one of the bottles. I laboriously bent down to pick one up, embarrassed by how hard it was for me, and handed it to him.


“Here, you look thirsty.”


He looked at the bottle for a second, and then smiled at me, “Well that would be why I was stealing your fridge instead of your purse. Go straight for what you want, that’s what I always say.”


He climbed back inside my room and sunk to the floor, happily guzzling from the bottle like a baby calf sucking on its mother’s teat. I just watched him as he drank, half expecting him to tell me off for being creepy, but he never did. When he had finished drinking I took the bottle from him and threw it towards the trashcan on the other side of the room, I listened with great satisfaction as it hit the rim with a hollow sound and toppled inside. If I wasn’t so fat I could be a decent basketball player, as it was I could only make a decent basketball.


“Nice shot,” he said, looking impressed. I smiled a little at the compliment. I’m not used to compliments.


“Are you hungry?” I asked, picking up the mini fridge with a huff and dragging it back into the corner where it had previously resided.


“I’m not, not hungry,” he replied, scratching the back of his head in a way that convinced me that he had lice. I kicked a bag of chips towards him, still out of breath from lifting the mini-fridge.


He looked at me for a moment before he opened the bag, his face an odd combination of confused, thankful and embarrassed.


“You know, you’re alright for a fat chick.”


And it was at that exact moment that I had a beautiful and terrible premonition.


I was going to fall in love with this boy, and he was going to break my heart.

“What’s your name anyway?” he asked suddenly, looking up at me from his spot on the floor. I blinked at him, surprised that he wanted to stay and talk to me, rather than grab a couple bags of chips and run.


“Angela; and you?”


“I’m Jack,” he said, grabbing another bag of chips off of the floor and groping inside with greedy hands. I frowned a little; up to this point I had just assumed that he was just some local who had gone through a growth spurt since I had last seen him. But there was nobody his age named Jack as far as I knew.


For the first time I felt a small pang of fear. This guy was a total stranger.


“Where the hell did you come from? Are you a tourist or something?” my voice had risen up an octave or two, and I found myself stepping back towards the wall. He could be anyone, he could be a mass murderer that I had just fed and sheltered, was I insane?


“I guess you could call me a tourist, I hitchhiked here; the guy driving the meat truck I had been stowed in the back of for the last eighty miles or so found me and kicked me to the curb. I walked about four or five miles until I reached this town and decided to stay for a day or so. I was planning on getting myself something to eat and then hitchhiking my way to California.”


“Hitchhiking? Isn’t that dangerous?” I said, both surprised and impressed. I couldn’t imagine getting in a car and making small talk for six hours with a strange old man who smelled like fish tacos and rotten milk. But then again I never was the adventurous type.


“It’s the drivers that are really scared, if you’re a hitchhiker you can handle yourself but those nice suburban types are always so jittery when it comes to strangers, most of the time they don’t bother pulling over. Bunch of pansies. Stowing away in the back of a semi truck is easier and more convenient; as long as I don’t get caught. This time I’m going to try to find a mattress truck or something, my back hurts like a bitch. Also I’m less likely to get caught since they don’t check on the merchandise as often.”


“You’ve really thought this through. What’s in California that’s worth all the trouble?”


He looked up at me and smiled, leaning back comfortably against the crumbly baby blue wallpaper and stretching out his legs so that his beaten up boots smeared mud all over the floor I had literally just mopped this morning. But instead of being annoyed I found myself treasuring the gesture, I had never seen someone look so at ease in my room, the only feeling I ever got from these four walls was the tension of disappointment. I found myself smiling back at him.


“If I knew what was there already why would I bother going?”


No, I had definitely never known him. Or anyone like him for that matter.


We both froze as we heard the front door swing open and the distinctive click click of heels on the wood floor.


“Oh crap, my mom’s home early. Climb out the window and meet me at Old’s Diner tomorrow morning at six okay?” I whispered, my heart beating so fast that I could barely hear my own words over the sound of my blood pumping. He kind of grimaced when I told him our meeting time but he didn’t complain.


“Come on Angela! I brought some salads for dinner.” She called from downstairs. Jack laughed at me from the window.


“Ooh a salad, aren’t you in for a treat,” he said, talking louder than I would have liked.


“Just go!” I hissed as he quickly slipped out the window.


“You’re a good kid,” he said, not looking back at me as he slid down the roof. I watched from the window as he slipped off the edge and landed on the lawn with a thud. I bit my bottom lip, wondering if his legs were broken, but before I could even finish the thought he stood up and took off running.

Dinner is always riddled with silence.

The grandfather clock on the wall chimed every fifteen minutes, the air conditioning buzzed, and my mother made crunching noises as she bit a little too forcefully into the occasional crouton, but words were hard to come by.


“So, Angela, did you go for your walk today?” she asked slowly, her fork perched halfway between her lips and her plate. The salad dressing made the green lettuce shine and glisten on her fork in what I considered a kind of ominous way.


“Yeah,” I said, looking everywhere but at her. I could feel where this was going, and I was already getting mad.


“No you didn’t,” she sighed, setting down her fork, “look Angela, you can’t keep going on like this. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Do you realize how-“


“What mom?” I interrupted, choosing a spot on her forehead to talk to, “Do I realize how embarrassing it is for you? Is that what you were going to say? How excruciating

it is to hear people talking about your parenting skills, or lack there of? Is it hard for you mom? Please, tell me how you

feel about my

weight.”


“I-I’m only worried about