My dad looked out the window at Andrew and the rest of his family unloading all of their boxes.
"Maybe you should go and offer to help them," he suggested, but I was already out the door.
"Oh, Andrew," his Dad called over as I approached, "It's that boy from the beach! See, you already know someone."
His sister smiled at him. And I renembered the awkward silence of that day.
"I don't think we've ever formally met!" His mother said, shaking my hand. "I'm Elizabeth Walesh, this is my husband Phil, and I think you've already met Andrew and Wynne."
"I'm Marcus, M-Marcus Alexander," I said shyly. "My Dad is inside, but his name is Darren, and my older brothers Ryder and Dameon are out at the moment..."
"How old are you and your brothers?"
"Well, I'm 15, I'll be starting this year as a Sophomore at Buckhannon Upshur High, and Daemon is a couple year older than me, but his birthday is in September so he's almost 17 and he'll be a Junior, and then Ryder is the oldest - he's a Senior in colldge."
"Oh, well Andrew is about your age, he's 14. His birthday is in April, and Stephanie is the age of your middle brother," she said nudging her. "Marcus, Did you start school late or were you held back?"
"I skipped Kindergarten.." I said running my hands through my hair awkwardly.
"Oh, heavens. Well, we were just bringing these boxes up, so I'll let you go."
"Uh, would you like any help?"
"No we're fi-" started Phil, but Elizabeth cut in with, "Oh, that would be really helpful, thank you."
I grabbed two of many boxes labeled "Andrew's books" and turned to him. "Do I take these to your room?"
"Yeah, I can show you where it is."
"Okay," I said, even though I already knew my way around this house like the back of my hand.
He led me up the same staircase I'd walked a hundred times before and, to no surprise, to the first door on the left.
"You can just lay it on the floor there, we haven't really unpacked anything yet."
"Oh, yeah." I dropped both boxes of books with a thud.
"You must be really strong," he said awkwardly.
"Uh, I mean you have to have a good arm when you're a Quarterback.." I forgot he'd never heard the 76 yard throw story. I was actually kind of glad, I had a fresh start.
"Oh, so you play football?" What kind of question was that? He clearly wasn't into sports. That was kind of cute, actually.
"Yeah, what do you do?"
"I dance." He said, and with that he raised his leg straight up, his toes going above his head.
I just sat down on one of the boxes of books. "Wow, you must be really flexible."
"You have no idea-" he said.
"Well, I guess sometime I'll have to find out."
"I guess you will."
YOU ARE READING
Along Came Andrew
Fanfiction"Maybe I don't want it to; maybe I want to sit down on a couch and lean my head on his shoulder and have him wrap his arms around me, or maybe just hug me as I cry into his shoulder, while he tells me it's going to be fine." B.D. 7.20.16
