Fletcher Handerson was done waiting.
He abruptly stood up from the lunch table, startling his friends as he did so, and stormed out of the cafeteria, to find a certain weeping boy.
He headed straight to the library.
He was upset.
Upset about not being able to comprehend his heightened, mixed emotions when it comes to a certain curly-haired boy.
He slipped inside the library quietly, and walked towards the seats in the corner of the library.
There he had found his weeping boy.
Philip was curled up on the couch, crying silently while he hugged his bag. His cheeks were swollen and eyes were so red, all tenderly.
Fletcher leaned over the couch to look at the curly-haired boy.
Philip sat up suddenly, bumping their foreheads in the process.
"Ow," he winced, rubbing his forehead.
Fletcher crouched in front of the boy and pried his hands away from his cheeks, and applied pressure to his forehead with his thumb finger.
"You didn't come to see me," Fletcher Handersom murmured, not taking his eyes off the forehead.
Philip's heart was pounding.
He wanted to cry.
That's something he does everyday.
"Why?"
"I just did."
Fletcher did not speak about the sticky note.
Philip was speechless.
He counted the syllables in the words that came out of Fletcher's mouth.
"Why did you want to see me?" Philip asked, gazing straight inside Fletcher's eyes, studying the specs of black around his blue eyes.
"I wanted to. I don't know why," Fletcher moved away, and noticed that Philip was looking intently at him.
"You are seeing me now."
"I am."
"Why?"
"I think I need to--I want to."
Philip's eyes welled up with tears.
"What is my name?" He asked, wiping his eyes, feeling embarrassed the next second.
"Philip Fork, you were my desk partner in grade three for a week."
Philip had stopped crying and he was now looking expectantly at the boy crouched before him, looking at ease.
"You don't think I'm weird?" Was Philip's big question, to which he dreaded the answer. The poor boy really liked to expect every answer and nothing at all.
Then?
Fletcher Handerson laughed.
--
"You cry quite a lot," Fletcher laid down his observation, guiding the boy towards the cafeteria.
Philip had stayed quiet while Fletcher introduced him to his friends. They all had waved, said something, whereas Philip just turned around and started to walk away.
"Where do you think you're going?" Fletcher was quick to reach out to him, halting his movements.
"Leaving."
"Why?"
By now, the entire cafeteria was trying not to stare too discreetly.
Philip was uncomfortable around new people, but he had known Fletcher for a long time in his mind. And heart.
He didn't understand why Fletcher wanted to speak with him all of a sudden. He somehow felt foolish.
Snatching his arms away from the blue-eyed boy, Philip walked away.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he muttered to himself as he exited the cafeteria.
He walked back to the library, stepping right inside the squared-tiles, avoiding the lines around them.
He counted the syllables of the word stupid as he walked the way he did.
Students stared, he didn't know.
They always stared. He never knows.
"Philip," Fletcher had called out his name.
Philip stopped walking, accidentally stepping onto one of the lines in the tiles. He broke down, in the middle of the hallway.
Not screaming, not sobbing, just silently crying.
Fletcher was concerned.
"Hey Philip, hey," Fletcher tapped his right cheek twice, kneeling beside him.
Philip wordlessly lifted his head to look at the boy beside him through blurry eyes.
"It doesn't matter alright, nothing will happen," Fletcher reasoned, but Philip shook his head, and pushed him away fiercely and ran away to the library.
Fletcher stared at Philip's back, surprised.
"Just leave it."
He looked up to see Brigette standing next to him, lending her hand down to help him up. He'd accepted the extended arm gratefully and dusted his pants.
"I don't know why you want to waste your time on him anyway," she commented, slightly annoying Fletcher.
"You wouldn't understand." He looked at her and shook his head, jogging ahead in the same direction that Philip took off.
Brigette glanced distastefully at Fletcher, glaring at his retreating back.
He was right.
She wouldn't understand.
In fact, no one would.
Philip had found comfort in the same old yellow couch in the library, his tears stopping momentarily.
He counted the wooden slabs that separated the book shelves from each other.
"Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen..." he muttered to himself, hugging his knees to himself.
Fletcher stalked towards him, his blonde hair swept in disarray.
"You keep running," he spoke, announcing his presence to the boy who was counting wooden slabs previously.
Philip had remained quiet for a couple of seconds before he spoke.
"Maybe I'm not running, I'm just chasing something."
"What would that be?" Fletcher took a seat next to Philip.
"I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just chasing something that does not exist."
Fletcher chose his words carefully.
"It does. If you are thinking about it, it exists. Maybe not in the real world, but it does exist. Here," he tapped the green-eyed boy's temple.
Philip nodded slowly.
"What am I waiting for then? For whatever is in here," he tapped his own temple. "To come true?"
Fletcher leaned back into the couch and relaxed his muscles.
"Do you want it to?"
"No."
Philip was quick to answer.
"Then it is something you fear. You're chasing it before it could chase you--you're waiting for it to run away from you."
Philip had never felt so naked in front of somebody. He felt invaded.
He was indeed, waiting for things to not happen.
"Why do you know so much about this?" The green-eyed boy looked expectantly at Fletcher.
"What is 'this?'"
Philip had gotten up.
"Nothing of your concern."
Fletcher was left quite stunned.
"What if it is?"
"It definitely is not."
Fletcher stood up to follow Philip wherever he went.
He was mesmerized by the intense look in Philip's eyes when he wasn't crying. He was around Philip for longer than he thought.
Philip eagerly got inside his brother's car when school finally came to an end.
"How was school?" Clyde had asked his brother, the very minute he set foot inside the car.
He only wanted to know how many times his brother had cried in school, if he had any panic attacks, if somebody messed with him, if he was happy.
'How was school?'
It was only a way of sugarcoating the rough expectations.
"Uneventful."
"Your day so far?"
"Intense."
"Maybe it will get better once we get home, we might have a surprise for you."
Philip spent the rest of the car ride to his home opening and closing the air duct in his brother's car.
~
'Dumb author, ditching me,' Choco mutters.