Leroy Adkins is an underperformer. He barely graduated. He barely got a job, and he hardly socializes in his day-to-day life.
Zachary Turner has been sick for as long as he can remember, and as he grows older the crushing realization that he never...
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Zachary saw Leroy approach the picket fences long before the man could see him. He stared at him from the sunroom, sitting in his wheelchair as he cradled one of his many cats on his lap. He felt his lips twist into a smile as the shorter man climbed over the fence and began to approach the house. Oftentimes there was a cat just under the stairs of the porch, and Zachary assumed that was where Leroy was heading. Oftentimes Zachary would give the man a few minutes alone with the cat before he took himself to the porch to say hi, and sometimes he didn't go out at all, and simply took in deep breaths, knowing the man was somewhere out on his lawn, petting a cat that was away from view. He didn't want to come off as desperate or stalker-like. He felt it would be uncomfortable if Leroy felt like he was forced to interact with him on every visit.
Leroy soon disappeared from view, but what happened next threw Zachary off guard. Usually, he would just hear the man muttering to his cat or pacing at the edge of the patio stairs before a cat approached him, but this time Zachary heard a knock.
On his front door.
Leroy was knocking.
The older man felt a lump in his throat as a sudden desire to shrink into his chair and disappear overwhelmed him. He looked down at the cat in his lap, wondering if there just weren't any cats outside, and maybe that was why Leroy was knocking.
There were another series of knocks on the door and Leroy felt the hair on his skin stand up straight. "Calm down," he mouthed to himself, shaking his head before letting out a sigh.
He looked in the direction of the door, biting his bottom lip before saying, "hold on for a minute," in a raspy voice—goodness, he hadn't said anything all day.
The knocking stopped, and Zachary looked at the cat on his lap. He picked it up, cradling it to his chest as he got up himself. He felt the familiar pain in his knees, that made him wobble a bit and feel like he was out of breath for the briefest moments. He curled his toes, making them grip onto his slippers until the pain passed. With some effort, he started to walk, one foot and bone-crushing pain in his joints at a time.
It was weird. Sometimes he was more than okay with walking. Sure, his legs would get sore, but it didn't feel bad, and at other times it felt like the world was asking too much of him to just hold his own weight.
He wobbled over to the front door, opening it to be met with Leroy with a cat cradled on his chest while hoisted with one hand, and the other hand holding onto a plastic bag with a 7/11 logo plastered on it.
Zachary blinked for a few seconds. He was a bit shocked to see even Leroy even though he'd known he was the one behind the door. The shorter man looked the same as ever, with his expressive, almost cartoonish, eyebrows and deep brown eyes. His dark hair looked a little shorter than usual—probably a recent haircut.
"Uh... hi." Zach gave himself a mental pat on the back for not simply stuttering, 'what are you doing here?' Instead. It still shocked him that Leroy was just standing right in front of him, so much so that the throbbing in his joints felt like a second-thought situation now.
