Beyond Love

Sour

[Nguyen]

"Ohmygod he's just looking around hopelessly like a lost kitten," Liz angsted whilst picking at her cheese fingers. "I can't look any longer. He needs his husband! Where the hell is the husband?!"

Sitting across me was an increasingly irritable Brendon, who seemed to be feeling the guilt on his shoulders grow heavier every passing second. I don't blame him.

"He can't find a seat," Evans continued to narrate beside me, craning his neck as he observed a wandering Mr. Honeycutt in the most discrete manner. "Oh he found one. He's walking towards it. Oh—oh wait, no." The abrupt change in his tone compelled the rest of us to follow his gaze, only to catch a very tragic scene of Mr. Honeycutt looking at Mr. Jaxon from afar—finding that the latter had joined a table of other gym instructors.

"What is this," Brendon hissed bitterly, "a soap opera?"

"Shut up Brendon," Liz rolled her eyes. "It's all your fault. Look, just look at the number of people staring at Honeycutt. The table behind you proves my point." Brendon didn't dare turn around. He knew Liz was right.

We sort of went back to our lunch very quietly, afraid that another word would ruin the mood entirely. Shin who sat across was looking around nervously, feeling the tension in the air just as much as I did.

"He's still finding a seat—" Evans was about to launch into another unbearable commentary when I stood up and got to the other side of our class' table. "Nguyen?"

"Yvonne, is that seat free?" I went up to ask, referring to the chair beside Yvonne that had her book bag on it.

She nodded. "Yeah, it's Layla's but she's absent today so it's free. You need it?"

"Can I...have the chair?"

Yvonne grabbed her bag and placed it behind her, leaving the chair empty. "Sure. Who's it for?"

"Uh...well," I didn't know how to respond. "I'm not sure yet." I left her confused, scurrying back to our side of the class table. It sat about twenty people.

Brendon's eyes popped as soon as he saw me carrying a chair over, rejecting my idea completely. "You're not doing what I think you're going to do, right...?" Liz was, very naturally, all for it.

"Give me that," she took the chair from my arms and placed it at the end of the table. "You go invite him over."

"W-what?" I panicked. "Me? I was thinking Evans could do it since he's all...I don't know, talkative—I mean I barely talk in class no shit."

Evans burst into laughter and elbowed Finn (my fangirl instincts tingled there for a second), turning to me with a thumbs-up. "Yeah but Honeycutt's kinda creeped out by me hundred-percent of the time. It'll be good if a model student like you asks."

Model student? Me? Yeah right, if only I could get an 'A+' just by writing gay fanfics in my exams, I'd be the best model student anyone's ever had. God.

"I'll try," was all I managed, really. So much for having an idea but being unable to execute it. That's like my entire life—heart's like: get rich, get famous. Brain's all: Execution error. Unable to perform function. You suck.

I sucked in a breath and gathered every bit of non-existent courage I had, going up to Mr. Honeycutt to offer him a seat at our table. At least Liz was nice enough to present me a double thumbs-up. Clearly, Evans doesn't matter.