A Certain Romance || Ashton Irwin

Questions

"You've never really had a boyfriend? Or is that a lie?" Arrie lied on my bed asking me question after question. Any time before noon was too early to bombarded an individual with questions, but he didn't care. Nor did he care about the fact that I was trying to stress myself out further with that English paper. My Dad was at the hospital doing random bouts of whatever he did, so that left Arrie and I to get to know each other.

He was just trying to find something to occupy himself with now that he was ready to start his day. It must be oh-so-boring being an outlaw biker without a thing to do because most of your crew was ready to snap you in half.

"I've never had one." I mumbled, reassuring him for the fifth time since he was clearly still surprised by my lack of emotional experience with the opposite gender. It was something I chose to not think about because it simply did not bother me. And because it didn't bother me, it shouldn't surprise or bother anyone else. It was my business after all.

"You're aren't a bad looking girl and you're quite funny. A good combination." He sincerely noted. "You don't take yourself too seriously and that should come as a relief to guys."

"It's kinda hard to score a boyfriend when all the guys around you see you as being just another one of the guys." I sighed, being done with the direction this conversation was going in. I didn't need to hear that I was relief for guys or that I was a good combination of things guys liked. I didn't give a shit what they liked and I didn't need to have some stranger basically giving me unwanted advice. "Whatever combination I am of whatever attributes doesn't mean a guy will suddenly want to date me. Besides, I'm fine without one anyway."

My confidence in the last sentence shut Arrie up for a few minutes, but right when I thought he was done talking for the day he started up again, hesitantly asking, "Have you ever been attracted to a boy before?"

"What a stupid question." I scoffed, shaking my head and shifting in my desk chair as I continued to write down things in my English notebook.

"Answer it."

"Yes, a few."

"And?"

"And then they all opened their mouths to talk and I was uninterested right away." I slammed my pen down, taking either side of my head in my hands, tangling my fingers in my hair from frustration. My mom wouldn't ruin my day, but Arrie...Arrie sure would if he didn't stop pestering me.

It got quiet again. This time I didn't take the time to convince myself that Arrie was done talking as it felt like he was in deep thought of everything I had told him thus far and was trying to come up with the next annoying question that could possibly drive me to choke him.

"What about Michael? Would you date him?" In any version of this besides the real life version, I would've already lunged across the room and choked him until he stopped breathing, but the real life version meant I sat right where I was and answered the question.

"Eleven year old me says yes while seventeen year old me says fuck no."

"Luke?"

"I want someone who's more interested in me than themselves." I took a second to write something down before continuing. "Then again, he'd be a nice candidate for someone who would just stand there and look cute and not say anything."

"Aaron?"

"I guess." I shrugged. "He's...okay."

"Just okay?" I heard him chuckle. There was no need to question what I thought about someone else. As long as I wasn't saying he was okay then it shouldn't be a problem to him.