Chemistry - A Sander's Sides Fanfiction

- 32 -

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! Here's a semi-feel-good (maybe?) chapter for Christmas Eve.
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Enjoy!

Roman had a lot of things on his mind come Tuesday night. First and foremost, he had to start thinking about auditions for Les Misérables, the winter play that would be taking place in early February. He was planning on snagging a role in that senior year and really didn't want to blow it.

Secondly, his strange 'exchange' with Virgil in the theater had him zoning out and nearly running into other students, furniture, and even walls. Roman recalled how thrilling the entire experience had been, with Vigil's stupidly handsome emo face so close to his, staring equally as deeply into the tunnel of his irises. (Yes, he thought Virgil was attractive once you looked past his shield of bangs, eyeshadow, and a defensive frown.) Roman had nearly kissed Virgil -- he had leaned in and everything -- but he didn't want to scare his friend. He could normally read when people were into him but Virgil was a completely different story. He was so talented at hiding everything and so hesitant with anything. However, Roman hadn't noticed the boy pull back, only stay frozen in place. He still had yet to gage whether that was a good or a bad sign.

Thirdly, Roman was still discomforted by the fact that Cecelia had purposely sought Virgil out so she could barrage him with cold stares and unnecessary whispers in the hallways. Not only did it make Roman feel awful for Virgil, it made him feel extremely guilty. Despite promising to follow Virgil's request and not bother with Cecelia, he couldn't bring himself to totally push the whole thing under the rug; part of him was still contemplating talking to the girl about overstepping the boundaries of common decency and whatnot -- though he knew he wasn't exactly the most justified person to be making those sorts of claims. The only thing that stopped him was replaying the memory of his talk on the phone with Virgil, during which the boy seemed desperate to ignore the situation. Roman didn't want to cause more harm than was necessary.

As much as Roman wanted to do something about each of the things on his mind, he could only bring himself to practice his script. At least it distracted him a bit from constantly replaying his near-kiss with Virgil.

As he sat at his desk, Roman stared out at the right hand neighbor's house through his window. As much as he had been trying to work on his script for the audition, his thoughts kept drifting. To Virgil, to Logan, to Cecelia. It was a big mush of thoughts in his head and it was sort of overwhelming. There was too much going on. Roman knew he probably should have talked to someone about it but... he just didn't.

The rest of the week went by awkwardly. Wednesday afternoon in chemistry was tense, to say the least. Everyone seemed to have something on their mind, for neither Virgil and Roman nor Patton and Logan were talking. Roman found himself wondering if something was going on between the two. Roman kept accidentally making eye contact with Virgil and watching the boy hurriedly look away.

Lunch was similar. However, what ended up happening was a conversation between Roman and Patton and a separate conversation between Logan and Virgil. Roman spent his time gushing and ranting about the upcoming Les Mis. auditions, for which both he and Patton were excited for. It was difficult to hear what the others were discussing but Roman had no problem believing that it was probably something either nerdy or existential -- most likely both.

But if Roman thought Wednesday was bad, it was nothing compared to Friday afternoon.

First off, auditions were that day after school and Roman was nervous. It wasn't anything new and he was used to having slight anxiety about auditioning. However, the day's main shock didn't come at three fifteen, it came at lunch.