Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

8 - And This Book Reveals Your Face

"Are you sure you don't want to eat anything, Love?" Penny offered for the fourth time since Alex had come downstairs.
So, for the fourth time, Alex declined.
He had gotten ready unusually early on this day, much to both of his parents' concern. The whole night had been torturous, really. Alex hadn't been able to get that moment out of his head. He tried everything, rolled around for hours, put on the CD-player only to find that the CD he had last listened to was the Beatles one the other day with Miles, and since that was the last person he needed to be reminded of, he put on 'Is This It?' by The Strokes. It didn't help. There was something about everything that he heard, music or the simple ruffling of his blanket whenever he turned, as well as everything he saw or didn't see in the darkness that ended with the same result: The outlines of Miles's face appeared somewhere mid-air, hanging over Alex's head whenever he looked up at the ceiling or staring back at him from every page of every book he picked up; everything he looked at.

The clattering of his father's teacup being set down noisily on top of the saucer and the following "Whoops, sorry 'bout that" ripped Alex out of his daydreams. He felt a bit startled but glad actually to find himself sitting at the kitchen table rather than in bed, not being able to sleep because of that face haunting him even outside of his actual dreams.

Alex glanced at the man sitting opposite him. He was reading the newspaper like he did every morning and Penny was fiddling with some cutlery in a drawer. Alex was sure she'd been on that very activity even since before he zoned out.
Both of his parents seemed awfully distracted, as if their minds were too occupied to pursue whatever it was they'd planned to pursue.

It felt as though the time that morning was the longest Alex had spent in a room with his parents in days, weeks perhaps.
"Alex?"
"Huh?"
"Your mother asked you a question."
"Oh", Alex replied, "Sorry. I didn't catch that."
"Obviously", David mumbled. It wasn't an 'under-his-breath' kind of sassy mumble, no, it was a concerned one paired with a stern facial expression that Alex rarely saw on his father.

"Darling", Penny began, "don't you have to leave?"
She pointed at her wrist, tapping the clock face of her small wrist watch. Alex jumped up as he saw the time on the bigger clock on the wall, realising that he was managing to run late even the one time he hadn't slept in.
"Fuck", he cursed to himself, loud enough for his Mum to hear though, who commented on his use of language with a click of the tongue.
As Alex rushed to get his backpack and coat, he suddenly felt a hand grab his arm firmly.
"Slow down", David said calmly, "I'll drive you."

The car ride felt rather long as neither one of the two spoke for most of it.
Normally, Alex's Dad would put on Jazz music in the car and they would carefully listen to it together, always having somewhat of a laugh.
This morning though, the radio was set to low volume and the whole city seemed more quiet than ever.

Once they were at the school and Alex loosened his seatbelt, David suddenly spoke.
"Hold on there, Son."
Alex looked over at his father. He had that stern look on his face again. Why did everyone have this look these days?

"Listen, you know I'm no good at these things and I'm sure your mother has already told you but I just thought it important to say that whatever it is, you can talk to us about it."
"I'm-"
"Just stop that, will you?"
"What?"
"You know, the whole 'I'm fine' - thing. Isn't that what you were about to say?"
Alex's silence proved there was nothing to say to deny that.
"Thought so", David concluded. "I know it's not easy. But think about it. Please."
Alex had his eyes fixed on his father for a moment before replying.
"Okay", he finally agreed and got out of the car.

As Miles approached the building he felt his steps getting continually smaller and his overall pace decreasing.
More than anything, he wanted to turn on his heel and walk all the way back home and jump into bed.

He took a deep breath or two, lifted his chin and did his best to appear his usual confident self when he entered through the wide open door.

The first class of the day was with Alex and Matt. Why couldn't it have been a Wednesday? If it had been, Miles would have at least had one more chance to procrastinate the inevitably unavoidable encounter.
Well, it wasn't and he was just going to have to deal with it.

The lively mumbling of his classmates had Miles feeling somewhat at ease when he entered the classroom. He couldn't have taken the silence, not today.
Trying to seem as effortless and unimpressed as possible, Miles found his usual seat next to Alex.

The boy appeared to be actively avoiding his gaze. Miles wondered whether he would acknowledge his arrival at all just when Matt called over a quick "Oh, hey mate" accompanied by a shy mumble of something similar from Alex. Miles returned the greeting in the same manner and started to rummage around in his backpack for a pen and some paper.

The rest of the lesson was no different from the beginning.
There wasn't anything to talk about anyways, the teacher kept rambling on about stuff that was 'too important not to note down' so Miles tried his best to keep up and - with that - to keep himself distracted from his own thoughts. As far as he could tell, Alex and Matt did the same. Miles was sure he had never seen either one of them as well as himself taking such precise and serious notes in class.
Alex and Miles were trying to escape the situation altogether and Matt undoubtedly was trying to flee from its biting awkwardness.

There were two more classes that Alex and Miles shared on that day and they didn't go any differently from the first one.
This was the first time that Alex did not enjoy sitting next to Miles. It was the first time that Miles considered taking a seat somewhere else in the room but ended up not doing it, ultimately deciding that that was actually very childish.

They were old enough to sit through this and it wasn't even like they'd had a fight. Miles was starting to wish they had though. He was sure a fight was a problem way more fixable than the one they were really facing.
If they had had a fight, Miles would apologise for possibly having said something he shouldn't have, Alex would too and they would agree to just forget about it and from there on their relationship would go back to normal.

But this, what even was this?
There was nothing to apologise for. There was nothing that one of them had done that the other said had hurt them.
They'd both leaned in. They'd both felt the tension.