Playing with Matches Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.
    “Hey, Rob? You ever get lonely? Feel like you’ll never meet anyone?”
    “Are you asking me out?”
    “Not with that tone of voice.”
    We were stuck in the daily three-thirty-five parking lot gridlock. Rob turned to me.
    “Leon, you’ve been on this ‘poor me, I can’t get a date’ kick for a year now. Face it, if girls don’t like you today, they won’t like you tomorrow.”
    I inched the car forward, then slammed on the brakes when someone cut me off. “Don’t you ever take the bus?”
    “Massa make me sit in da back. Seriously, man, don’t wait for girls to change. They won’t.”
    I saw an opening in the traffic and gunned it, narrowly avoiding the security booth. Parking Lot Pete, the middle-aged school security officer, shouted at me as I tore onto Mexico Road.
    After I dropped Rob off, I thought about what he’d said.
Girls won’t change.
So what was I supposed to do? Change myself?
             
    Cleaning out my room was like going on an archaeological expedition: I’d uncovered a lot of dust, many fragments, and several dead things. Already I’d filled three bags for the trash and two boxes for storage.
    As I examined what was either a putrid roll of sweat socks or a fossilized burrito, I was stunned by the flash of a camera.
    “Mom! Knock it off!”
    My mother was standing in my doorway with the camera, a smug smile on her face. Mom was five feet tall and in her forties, but still intimidated me. I felt like she’d caught me downloading pornography (again).
    “My son’s doing housework without being asked. I had to record it.” Mom chucked me on the shoulder and began to help me pick up. Nonchalantly, I dropped some books on top of my stack of swimsuit issues.
    “You’re getting rid of your role-playing books?” Mom asked as I stacked them in a plastic tub.
    “Just packing them up.”
    She shook her head. “I never thought you’d get rid of those. And your Star Wars figurines?”
    “C’mon, Mom, I’m seventeen.” I didn’t mention I’d bought some of them as recently as two years ago.
    Mom sat on my bed, toying with Baxter, my teddy bear. (I didn’t have the heart to shove him into a box.) I removed a model airplane from my bookshelf, dusted it off, and dropped it into the trash.
    “So why are you throwing out all your toys?” asked Mom wistfully. Moms. You’ll always be five years old to them.
    “Just getting rid of some of my old stuff. I’ll be out of high school soon. I don’t think I need to leave my Cub Scouts awards up.”
    Mom frowned and stroked Baxter’s bald head. Every time I mentioned I’d be off to college in a couple of years and leaving her and Dad alone, she’d get a little sad. I don’t think she liked the idea of me growing up. Suddenly, she grinned.
    “What’s her name?”
    “Huh?” I was taking down my fifth-grade science fair certificate. It had been on the wall so long it left a faint imprint.
    “This girl you like. You haven’t thrown anything away in seventeen years; I thought there might be a girl involved.”
    I removed a stack of Pokémon cards from my storage box and pointedly dropped them into the trash. “There’s no girl, Mom.”
    “I just meant that maybe you had your eye on someone.”
    “There’s no girl, Mom.”
I think Mom liked to believe that I had never gotten over my elementary school fear of girl germs. She never could accept that her smart, handsome, perfect son simply could not land a date. The first time Samantha came over to hang out, Mom asked me about her for weeks.
    “Leon, are you sure there’s not anyone on your mind?”
    No way I was getting into that conversation. If I said yes, she’d hound me; if I said no, she’d worry I was gay.
    I hoisted a sack of trash. “Could you take this out to the curb?”
    She took it, smiled at me, and left.
    I straddled my chair. Okay, I’d gotten rid of my crap. So what? My room was cleaner, but I was no cooler. What did I think would happen? That once