Superheroes

Chapter Ten - Slipping

                                          Chapter Ten – Slipping

After Andrew’s tantrum in the rain, and my hurling of accusations, I expected things to be pretty tense between us. I spent the morning of the following day trying to slow down time with some non-existent undiscovered powers in the desperate hope that I could put off lunchtime. All too soon, however, the lunch bell rang and I headed over to our usual spot.

Thankfully, he was at least there, sitting cross-legged and hunched over on the grass. Another one of Trent’s library books was open on the grass before him but he barely even looked at it. In his lap, he was carefully plaiting three strands of grass together. I considered clearing my throat to announce my arrival in a classic movie fashion, but decided against it out of cowardice, and instead took my seat beside him.

The uncomfortable silence that followed was top notch, grade A, high quality awkward. I tried to come up with something casual to say, but all I could think of was his confession about Trent, or how much I’d humiliated myself by jumping to conclusions. Something had to be said though, and judging by the way in which Andrew had lowered his head and kept his eyes stubbornly on the grass, it was going to have to be me.

“S-so, I never p-pictured the b-blonde athlete as b-b-being your type,” I said with the world’s most forced laugh ever. “Guess I w-was wrong.”  

“You picture me with guys a lot, huh Ash?” Andrew drawled back, and to my relief he smiled.

“Every time I close my eyes,” I replied, earning a laugh from him. The relief must have shown on my face because he then rolled his eyes, shaking his head at me.

“Don’t judge me too much,” Andrew said, straightening and discarding his styled grass. “He had a fantastic arse.”

“Y-you were p-powerless to resist,” I added helpfully, in a slight state of disbelief that I was discussing Trent Buchman’s rear end with Andrew Godfrey, who until yesterday I had thought was straight. Some things you just didn’t wake up expecting.

“Didn’t even try.”

When quiet returned, I was relieved to find that the ice had been broken. I still felt the instinctive need to apologise, however, just in case he was masking harboured anger. “Um, A-Andrew, I’m s-sorry about-”

“I thought I already told you that if you tried apologising one more time I would reunite you with Trent, so that you could ask him your damn self how he died?” Andrew reminded me dryly, sounding perfectly serious about the death threat.

“See, it’s c-comments like that make p-people think you’re a cold-blooded k-killer,” I said under my breath. As payment, I received another book to the head, failing to duck out of the way.

“I guess we’re back to hitting the books for more clues then,” Andrew said, making little air quotes with his fingers at the word ‘clues’. He coolly ignored my glare for the book attack.

“I d-don’t see what else w-we can do,” I admitted with a sigh, fishing around in my bag for my book.

“Fucking fantastic,” Andrew muttered, picking up his own book and holding it limply in one hand.

“Hey, Ash,” he said as I emptied the contents of my bag onto the grass, unable to comprehend how I couldn’t find such an enormous book in such a tiny bag. “Sorry about the whole stutter dig by the way.” For once it was his turn to look incredibly awkward, fidgeting where he sat. Pausing my search, I looked up at him, speechless. It was a rare day when Andrew Godfrey apologised to someone.

“It’s fine,” I said once I’d shaken off the surprise, “it g-gave me a good excuse to p-punch you anyway.”

“If you could call that a punch,” Andrew said lightly, pretending to suddenly be very interested in his book as he smirked into the pages. Practically asking for it, he got the spare book thrown back at him, clipping his shoulder. It seemed he really had turned me into a criminal book vandal.