A short notice thingy- there's a 'chapter' before this and I'm not sure whether or not you've read it, so just a little notice.
Nick (did you miss him? :P)
Max was Jerry; I was Tom. Having spent the evening wondering why he’d just run off- I was certain he’d heard me, and had known it was me, and the morning trying to get him to talk to me, I decided to get a little help.
“Hey, I’m just saying.” Rodney’s hands were up in the air as though he were surrendering.
His boyfriend’s face reddened. “Shut up!” he hissed. “Nobody’s going to, shut up!”
“They are,” Rodney insisted, leaning down closer to whisper in his ear, “I know I am.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup. All day long.”
“Consider it a one-time thing then.”
The taller boy wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. “Come on, don’t be like that.”
“You were the one complaining about others!”
“Yeah, well, then I guess I’d best make it clear you’re mine.” He leaned forward to kiss Ryan’s hair, then started to turn him around to place another on his mouth.
Ryan’s face was hot.
“Uh, guys? This a good time?”
He jumped.
“Nick! You scared me!”
“Now’s okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” his face was still red- had Nick seen that? “Why would you think it wasn’t?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it looked like things were happening.” He teased, and Ryan’s face reddened further.
“Rodney was being stupid.”
That earned him a vehement protest. “I was not! Don’t you think those jeans would make people look at his ass?”
Ryan smacked the taller boy. “Shut up!”
Nick was about to add on, just to tease his friend, but then he remembered what it had been he’d interrupted the two for. “I wanted to know if you guys had seen Max.”
Ryan turned his attention to his friend. “Not really, why?”
“Did something happen? ‘Cause I swear he’s been avoiding us all morning.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, I think he’s avoiding me, too, it’s why I asked if you’d seen him.”
“What happened?”
“There’s this guy – his name’s Leo. Have you heard of him?”
“Not really, why?”
“I don’t know, exactly, but he looks a hell lot like John,” he grimaced, “and was his lab partner too. I tried to catch up to him but he just ran away.”
Rodney relaxed. A newfound protectiveness had started to form over their missing friend, and the news was alarming, but this was alright. “He probably doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Nick wasn’t convinced. He knew his best friend, and this wasn’t like him. Even if he didn’t want to get into a discussion about how he was, a topic that had much content, recently, he wouldn’t avoid him like this. “I think something’s up.”
“Well, duh,” Rodney said easily, “seeing a lookalike’s got to be freaky. How close are they?”
Maybe, after all, Nick had been surprised too. “Pretty close,” he admitted, “for a moment I thought it was him, too.”
Ryan couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips.
“I think there’s something else going on though.”
His conviction hadn’t really moved Rodney over, nevertheless: Do you want us to try and find out?
“If you can, yeah.”
*
I hadn’t really expected much to result from it, really, because Max knew how to keep to himself, so it surprised me when Ryan came up to me after the first period.
“Hey, wait up.”
I was heading to my locker at that point.
“What’s up?”
Ryan giggled. “It feels weird to be doing this,” he paused, “but I guess I’m reporting to you.”
It didn’t take me long to realize what he was talking about. “Max?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?” I was curious. A part of me didn’t believe that Max would suddenly decide to open up to them, but then, why would Ryan lie?
“Nothing much, really. He’s fine, and you should stop worrying.”
I was hesitant.“His words?”
“No, he admitted that he got a little freaked out seeing that guy, but it’s not a big deal. He just needs time to get used to it.”
Why didn’t he want to tell me that? “Really? They why was he avoiding us like that?”
“I’m pretty sure nothing else is going on,” Ryan tried to assure me, “but you’ve got to cut him some slack. The meeting had to have shaken him up a bit.”
If that’s it, why couldn’t he tell me that? Why was it so easy for him to tell Ryan? I shook my head to try dispel the thought – it wasn’t the time, and it was stupid.
As for Max’s explanation…it sounded plausible, but not enough to silence the instincts that were screaming at me to open my eyes. I couldn’t place my finger on what it was, exactly, but these were instincts I’d learned I’d better trust, and they kept insisting that I wasn’t seeing everything.
“I don’t know,” I started slowly, “I just keep thinking there’s something else going on. But he won’t tell me about it.”
I almost missed the sheepish expression on his face. “Yeah, well, you can’t fault him for that either.”
What does that mean? “What do you mean?”
He shook his head hastily. “Nothing. Just, he probably doesn’t want to keep talking about it all the time.”
“Well, he should.”
“You should stop thinking you’re meant to be his babysitter.”
“No,” I told him, “it’s not that. I know we’re friends, but I just wish he wouldn’t keep things to himself like that. It helps to talk it out.”
“He could be sick of it.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, “but I wish he wouldn’t keep trying to deal with everything himself. Yeah, it’s been a year and stuff, but it takes time. I know.”
“Give it to him, then.”
*
I found him staring away into nothing by his locker a few moments after Ryan had waved me goodbye.
“Uh, Max?”
He looked up at me, startled. I wanted to ask what he’d been thinking about, but he seemed to recover. “Hey,” he smiled.
I wasn’t sure what to say. The question of what had happened earlier had returned to the air just as briefly as it had disappeared as we’d exchanged greetings. “So,” I opted for, “We have English next, right?”
He raised an eyebrow, as if to question me. Really?
I sighed softly. There was no need to blow things out of proportion. “Okay, so yeah,” I hesitated, “I get you didn’t want to talk about it or anything and didn’t want to be pressurized but Ryan told me that they, uh-”
“Cornered me after lunch?”
I’m not his babysitter. Suddenly, I was ashamed. I looked down. “Yeah.”
“It’s not a big-” he stopped midway, “deal,” he finished, “and you had something to do with it.”
I felt myself flush. “Uh, yeah.”
“Look at me.”
Face the music. “Yeah, I kinda asked them to try and talk to you, ‘cause you know, I knew you didn’t want to see me and-”
“I’m sorry,” he cut through. “I just didn’t want to talk about him.”
“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have pushed.”
He shook his head. “No, don’t say sorry because you cared. It was, I was just…stupid.”
I looked at him questioningly.
“I was being too-too stuck up, proud. Just wanted to handle this on my own for once, you know?”
Really? Rodney had called this right? “You think you’ve been a pest?”
“You don’t need me to come crying to you whenever something upsetting happens. You have a life, and-”
“Hey!” It was my turn to interrupt. Since when had he started entertaining thoughts like that? Mortified, I proceeded to inform him that we were friends, that he could tell me anything.
Neither of us said anything for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something then, but it shut close, before he made an announcement.
“Leo!”
“Yeah, I know, that’s his name,” I was puzzled. He wanted to talk about it?
“No, I-”
I realized my mistake moments later. “You know, you really shouldn’t be loitering about in corridors.”
Oh. It was him. Instinctively, I took a step closer towards Max.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you guys to head off to class now.”
“You’re a hallway monitor?”
“Yeah,” his response was accompanied with a grimace, “this is somehow meant to get me credits.” Then he turned to me. “What’s your name? I’m Leo.”
Before I could respond though, a new voice entered the scene. “Nick!”
Lani was by my side before I could blink. “Hiiya,” she greeted Leo and Max.
“Hey.”
“Hey there.”
Seemingly satisfied with the responses she’d elicited, she smiled. “Are we going to class today?”
“Yeah, uh, Max and I were just heading over,” I told her, shooting a quick glance over at Max, who was positively uneasy.
“What lesson do you guys have?”
Our reply was simultaneous. “English.” Lani broke into a tiny giggle, and the rest of us smiled.
“Mrs. K?”
Max nodded.
“I’m there too!”
Oblivious to the grimace Max’s face had momentarily turned to, Lani returned her attention to me. “So, do we go?”
I looked at Max. “Yeah, sure. Max, you ready?”
“Actually, could we talk?” Leo spoke before he could reply. My eyes widened with alarm and I tried to protest, but Max dismissed us.
“Uh, sure. Nick, Lani, you guys go on ahead. I’ll come with Leo.”
I wanted to stay back nevertheless, but Lani was looking at the scene curiously. In as much as I knew Max would prefer some company, I knew he’d appreciate not having Lani around.
“So, what were you guys talking about?”
“Nothing, not much. Leo was just telling us to go to class.”
She looked at me disbelievingly. “What about before that?”
“Nothing. Just some guy stuff.”
Wrong answer. “Aw, come on, Nick. You can tell me!”
“It wasn’t anything,” I responded hastily, praying she’d let it drop. This was my least favorite topic of discussion – on one hand, it wasn’t any of my business, telling her what Max told to me, but on the other, it wasn’t fair on her, either. It wasn’t her fault that she had no idea about what had gone down in her absence, and she was bound to be curious… “Forget it.”
She was adamant though. “Why don’t you trust me?”
I didn’t want to upset her further. “It’s not that.” I tried to pacify her.
“No? Then why is it that whenever I show up you guys change the subject, or start acting weird?”
She was trying her best to sound angry, defensive, but the hurt wasn’t masked well enough. “It’s not true, that’s never happened.”
“It just did.”
She was definitely upset. I couldn’t lie either, though, so it was with relief that I realized I had a defense that would hopefully make her forget it. “No, not really. Calm down, babe, think about it. We didn’t change any subject.”
She didn’t believe me though, and her voice only got more high pitched as she continued to question me. “What about the other time? When you were talking about someone and I asked you who it was and you just changed the subject?”
She was talking about the time when Ryan had mentioned that Max had been on a blind date with that guy – Dillon, Dylan, was it?
Max was puzzled; Nick had called out to him with an urgency that had him worried.
“Is all okay?”
“Yeah, it is.” Nick smiled. “Just I haven’t talked to you for a while, so wanted to catch up.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“So, how’ve you been?”
Max seemed amused. “You do realize we’ve been seeing each other daily, right? I’m fine, great.” As an afterthought, “How about yourself?”
Nick couldn’t help but smile. Moments later, they were laughing.
“No, but really,” he asked again. “How’ve things been?” Dare he ask? “ Did you have fun last night?”
Max’s expression sobered up instantly. Surely, his friend hadn’t just stopped him to question his evening, had he?
“Well, good.”
Nick couldn’t resist. “And the guy?”
“Nick!”
“What? I’m just asking!”
“He’s a great guy,” Max flushed, “but I’m not really looking to date someone, you know?”
His friend was skeptical. “Uh-huh. What’s his name?”
“What’s who’s name?”
Both boys were startled to see Nick’s girlfriend step up beside him.
“Oh, hey. Where’d you come from?”
“My other class.”
“Right. But I’d told you to go on, not wait for me-us.” Nick still seemed slightly perturbed.
“Yeah, I know. But I decided to wait anyway.” She smiled at him before turning to his companion. “Max, hi!”
“Hey.”
“Anyway, what were you guys talking about?”
“Nothing, just, stuff.”
“Come on, you can tell me. What’s who’s name? What guy were you talking about?”
“Nobody, nobody important.”
Lani was looking at me expectantly.
“You’re right there,” I admitted unwillingly, “but that was Max’s call.”
Her face fell visibly at the mention of his name. “He doesn’t like me, does he?”
“I don’t think it’s that. He-” I needed to be careful, “just needs time to warm up to people.”
Lani smiled sadly. “I really don’t think he likes me. He never tries to talk to me or anything and clearly doesn’t want me to know anything about him.”
The last thing I needed was for my girlfriend to hate my best friend. “It’s not that,” I was grasping at straws, a strange despair building up within, “He’ll warm up to you in his own time, you’ve just got to give him that.”
The irony.
“Yeah? And how is that going to happen if he always keeps running away whenever I show up and doesn’t talk to me?”
The light-bulb shone. “Tell you what, I’ll try get the two of you together, alright? Then you could talk some, get to know each other.”
That would work, wouldn’t it? Max would warm up to Lani sooner or later, and he’d see that she was a great girl, then maybe he’d come out of his shell a little more. And then they’d both be happy – he didn’t need to keep trying to skirt around talking about himself around her, and she wouldn’t get so upset.
She nodded slowly.
“I guess. But do I get a little info?”
“It’s not my place to tell.”
“Come on, just a little!” she pleaded, looking me straight in the eye. “I swear I won’t tell anybody.”
I didn’t want to hurt her. “Please don’t press. You’ll hear it from him when he wants to tell you.”
Lani was stubborn. She always had been. “What is it though? You keep making it sound like there’s some huge deal, like something big happened?”
It’s going to be a long day. “Think of it as something like that."
I realize how quite a bit is a repetition through Nick's POV, but it felt too weird to randomly put in the other bits without any background.
Please comment?