Fell In Love In Stages // a matty healy fanfic

The Shed

I entered the classroom thinking I'd be counting down the minutes until the hour was up, but it was surprisingly interactive. It was just a handful of us and the desks were rearranged in a casual semi-circle. I'd never seen Mr. Morad this animated in any of his classes before.
"You can argue—indeed, you may argue, if you choose to write about him for your final reaction papers—that Troilus is a fool for being obsessed. But you could also argue that there is something tragically heroic about fighting this battle he is doomed to lose. Is Troilus' hope a kind of insanity, or is it the very definition of humanness?"
I wrote down as much as I could of what he said, realizing that I could probably pull off my final reaction paper without actually reading the book. As he talked, it occurred to me that Mr. Morad was unusually good at reading stuff.
I glance over at Matty and he's perched at the edge of his seat, listening attentively. He isn't in any of my classes, but I suspect none of his other subjects get this kind of treatment. He might've sensed me staring because just then he shoots me a look and winks at me.
The hour got over surprisingly quick and we were in the parking lot in no time.
"The guys usually hang around for an hour so we can leave together, but I don't see the car so I guess it's just you and I this afternoon. "Hop on", he says, handing me a helmet. "You don't have anywhere to be, do ya?"
"I'd blow it off for you", I smile
"Minx" he smirks
"Where we going?"
"The shed"

The shed, was, quite literally, a shed.
There was nothing swank about it from the outside. On the inside however, it was a mecca for every band poster that's ever been printed. From the floor, to the walls, the ceiling; every inch was covered in what looked like pages that had been carefully cut out of magazines.
Lacy, Sophie and I sat passing a joint on the floor while the band jammed.
Lacy said to me, "They're brilliant, aren't they?" and I said, "Yeah," and she said, "This is like the opposite of our former group, huh?" And I said, "Yeah," and she said, "George can be a lot, but I love him." And I said, "Yeah." "Plus he's got really brown eyes," she added, and I said, "Uh-huh," and then she said, "Everyone says Matty's cuter, but I like George," and I said, "Okay," and she said, "This part is so great, isn't it?" And I said, "Yeah." Talking to a stoned Lacy was like talking to an extremely happy three-year-old.
This marks possibly the longest conversation I've had in a while. Bar one, of course.
The next song they play was called 'Sex' and Matty's singing about his tongue in her mouth and his shirt on her at the back of his van and I can't help but wonder if the 'her' he's singing about is the 'princess Molly' whose MySpace profile comes up fourth, right after his band mates and the room starts spinning and all the moisture in my mouth ceases to exist and I feel like I need some fresh air.
I stumble towards the door and Matty, still singing, looks at me with concern and I shake my head and wave my arms nonchalantly, gesturing I was okay.
When the cool evening air hits my face, I feel instantly better. I stand there for a bit, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I look up at the sky and I see storm clouds rolling in.
I groggily pull out my phone and wished I lived in a time where we could surf the net on this tiny mobile device. I chuckle at my imagination. I scroll through my contacts and call Charlie.
"Hey"
"Hi"
"T, is everything okay?", he sounded worried
"Everything is great. Just wanted to hear your voice" I smile in the dark
"Oh, you scared me, I thought-"
Just then I hear a girl with an accent in the background beckoning Charlie to hang up, followed by a muffled "shut up"
I shut my eyes. I should've known better than to call him. I feel so stupid.
"Hey I gotta go, my friends need me inside" I say, mortified
"No, T, wait-"
And that was all I heard before I hung up. I switch off my phone, the song in the shed coming to an end.
Matty joins me, his hair a disheveled mess.
He hands me a bottle of water and I thank him.
"You alright, love?" he says
I gulp down half the contents of the bottle before answering
"No, yeah, I'm fine. Just dehydrated I guess" I say shrugging
I wanted to ask him about Molly and if she was the girl in the song, or if it was someone else entirely, but I stop myself.
"Awfully quiet tonight" he says, running a hand through his curly locks.
"I was just thinking..." I trail off
"About?", he asks, when I don't continue.
"The songs you were singing"
"And?"
God, boys can be so unbelievably dumb sometimes.
"Sex...?" I say that, like it was a question
And then it clicks. "Oh", he says, followed by "it's just a song" he tries to play it off
I put one finger up, saving us from more lies.
"It's not like I feel some urgent desire to know things about you, you're not comfortable sharing. I mean I've only known you for a week... I just think that if you don't say the honest thing, sometimes the honest thing never becomes true"
He takes a moment to mull it over and says "you're right", brows still furrowed, and that is all he gets a chance to say before the rest of the gang come out of the shed noisily. George jumps on Matty's back and that's the end of the conversation. Sophie slings her arm around me.
"I gotta be home in 10 or my dads gonna be cheesed off" she says "Need a ride, babe?"
"Yes, please"