Sincere

We were waiting for my dad to pick us up from the university math building, where Friday Night Magic took place. Thomas was talking about something I no longer remember, when a car pulled into the lot and screeched to a stop. The front passenger window rolls down. “Hey kid,” the grown man said, pointing at his scalp. “Does my hair look weird?”

Thomas made a face. “What?”

“We have a bet,” he said, nodding at the driver, then pointed at me. “So, yes or no? Does my hair look weird?”

I paused, looked with disinterested and uninterested eyes, and said: “It looks like shit.”

“Told you,” he said, receiving a hundred dollar bill with a smirk. “Thanks, man.”

The car drove away, and starting from that day I was an adult.