Infinite, sometimes

2

            Ryan inhaled sharply and welcomed the cold air into his worn body. He was hit with a gentle burst of energy and he was able to distract himself from thoughts of the father he was afraid to lose. The houses he passed in the four blocks to the school fit in perfectly with his own. Mostly white, some brown brick, all of them huge. Even though his only had one level as opposed to the two or three that the rest of the houses had, it still fit in and made him feel a little less out of place. Inside, though, he was concerned about the big difference between his home and the rest of the houses on the street. Ryan knew that, from the outside, the house looked normal. He knew that any family with 2.5 beautiful children, the son slightly older than the daughter, could have a perfectly normal and happy existence in that house. The dog could be chasing a tennis ball thrown by a small girl in the back yard, while an ornery boy scaled the tree in order to spy on his annoying little sister. But Ryan also knew better than that. In reality, the amount of suffering those walls held was bordering on unbearable. Ryan had his bedroom, still intact, but the master bedroom sat empty except for a small bed pushed against one wall and some clothing barely populating the closet. The kitchen was lucky to have a phone and a few appliances, and the living room had been left with a television on the floor in front of an old couch. The house was empty and Ryan could not help but to feel empty along with it. When his mom left, she took everything. The kitchen table, family pictures, bookcases, Ryan's sense of security—so much was gone, and he felt like he was left with nothing. His mom only moved across town, afraid of divorce and afraid of going too far. She had fought slightly to take Ryan, but he was old enough to win the small battle and she left him behind with an open invitation to come by or move in whenever he tired of everything. But Ryan would rather find himself immersed in the safety of Spencer's couch than lose all hope of ever having a decent life with his father.
            The sun was starting to peak over the top of the school once the building came into view and Ryan could feel it start to warm his skin, but he still had some time left to take in the brisk air. His feet enjoyed the transition from concrete to grass when he decided to cut across the front lawn at the first sight of Spencer curled up under a tree with his girlfriend, Ellen. The girl perked up, grinning enormously as one of her favorite people grew near.
            "Don't look too happy to see me now, Ry! How are ya this morning?" Ellen pulled herself off of Spencer and stood up to greet a nervous Ryan with a long hug. "Haven't seen ya in a few days. We tried to call last night to see if you wanted a ride or whatever."
            "Sorry. Didn't feel like talking much I guess." He returned Ellen's squeeze and he was fully aware that Spencer didn't mind. He let go of her and pulled out the smile that he had perfected earlier in the morning, although he was honestly happy to be with two people who cared about him as much as Spencer and Ellen did. The girl pulled back the left corner of her mouth in a half smile as if to acknowledge the fabricated expression on her friend's face.  "But this morning was good, really. You know how it goes. It was good."
            Spencer nodded and extended his hands to Ryan, who was eager to grab them and pull his friend up and against his chest, hugging him tightly in his arms. Spencer reciprocated and Ryan breathed in the scent of his mild cologne. It was a soothing scent that he was used to inhaling for hours on nights that he had to seek safety at the boy's house. Ryan knew that he could be given that cologne in any situation and he would instantly feel secure. It was the scent of Ryan dissolving into the couch with Spencer's arm tightly around his shoulders to assure him that there would be no more yelling or pain for the night. Sometimes it was the scent of curling up on the bed and holding onto Spencer's hand because letting go would make Ryan feel lost. Sometimes it was the scent of Spencer's heart beating into Ryan's ear, but regardless of what it was at times, Ryan always knew what it smelled like to be safe from everything.
            Ryan quickly tightened his grip on Spencer before letting go of him, glancing toward the building and taking a mental note of the impossibly huge number of groups of students that were scattered about. "It's nice to see you guys again even if it hasn't been long. Gonna be weird having friends here."
            Spencer shrugged. "Yeah, well, I guess we don't really have that many. Maybe a couple people, but yanno, we just like avoiding all the drama and bullshit or whatever."
            "Doesn't bother me though. I'm fine with just a few." Ellen took Spencer's arm and wrapped it around her waist, and the teenage boy had to resist tackling her to the ground. He settled on an exaggerated grin instead. "So, Ry, did you sleep okay last night?"
            Ryan looked away in honest thought before slightly nodding his head. It had been a surprisingly uneventful sleep, but not nearly as pleasant as Ryan had always hoped for. It was actually tolerable, though, and he couldn't help but to worry about it never being that peaceful again. He felt the air growing warmer by the minute and he came to the sad conclusion that he would eventually need to shed his jacket. He pushed his foot around in the grass and moved to lean against the tree.
            "I think you should hang out with us today or something. It's been a few days and I need my Ryan fix, you crazy kid." Spencer flung his arm around his friend's shoulders and pressed their heads together. "And you know if you say no, we'll just follow you home."
            Ryan nodded again. "Not much to do there but I'd like you to come anyway. You're welcome to stalk me to my front door."
            Ellen grabbed each boy's hand and pulled them toward the building. The bell had sounded as Ryan finished his thought, telling the three of them that they had fifteen minutes to fight their way through the back-to-school masses and try to make it to homeroom in one piece. Once inside the school, they parted ways, each spouting various forms of "later" and "see you at lunch." Their farewells were lost in the chaos and Ryan pulled out his schedule to begin his search for locker 319. He bit his tongue and enjoyed blending in with the mass of social creatures instead of being the target of various insults and laughs. He concentrated on the number plates attached to the tops of the locker doors, brass plates with chipped black numbers, haphazardly screwed onto the door above the air vents. 297. His shoulders brushed against person after person because regardless of how small he was, seven people simply did not fit in an area suited for three, but there would be no breaking up the groups and cliques that had gathered. Ryan just pushed his way through, not trying to hit people but colliding with them anyway, and each one was oblivious to his presence. As lonely as he felt, he was glad that they were all too busy to have time to notice him. It was too soon yet—he would rather just sit back and observe. 308. There were shouts about shirts and shoes and vacations, boyfriends, girlfriends, senior year, freshman year, mostly things Ryan never concerned himself with, as he was too busy just surviving. He was unsure of how to handle all of these shouts since they were not being thrown directly at him, but he knew he just had to breathe. He was home now, safe where he was. He never expected to find this feeling inside a school. 317...18...319.
            Ryan used his index finger to push the handle upward, allowing for the grind of metal against metal, and he pulled the door toward himself. The handle fell back down with a clink after he let go and he stared into the gray painted depths of his empty locker. It still looked lonely even after he hung his bag on one of the two hooks. He reluctantly unzipped his jacket and slipped it off, one arm at a time, revealing the thin black v-neck shirt that he had been wearing for a while. The material clung to him like arms wrapped around his body, and he loved how the bottom edge of the shirt just barely met with the waist of his jeans. Hanging his jacket on the other hook for storage meant that he would be unable to lift its hood over his head and hide if the need to disappear came about, but Ryan figured that was what his bangs were for. He tried to occupy himself by pulling out a folder filled with paper but the allure of a blue folder full of blank college-ruled canvasses wore off very quickly.
            Ryan's eyes drifted to the anxious boy who was busy with locker 318, and he made himself look busy while hoping nobody noticed the lack of print on the papers he was flipping through and pretending to focus on. His eyes remained fixed on this boy and the mass of black hair that laid thick on top of his head, bangs slightly longer than the rest. Ryan's eyes traveled down and studied the dark blue jeans that appeared to be squeezing the life out of the boy's legs, and Ryan could not resist the urge to rest his eyes on parts of the boy's body that were being deprived of clothing due to the extremely low rise of his pants. Skin peeked out from under the unnaturally tiny sweatshirt every time the boy lifted his arms. Ryan started to follow his every action, watching as he removed various items from his bag and placed them on the shelves. The boy's hands were small, but the fingers were not as long as Ryan's, and the boy was thin with a slightly larger frame than Ryan's natural skin-on-bone look. People had told Ryan they wished they could look like him and others commented that he needed to eat, but these remarks bothered him. The only problem he saw was that he could eat all day long and still look the same. He was fascinated by this boy's body, perfect in every way, exactly how Ryan wanted to look. He wanted to look healthy and not have to beg people to believe him when he says he probably eats more than they do.
            A single thin black plastic bracelet adorned each of the boy's wrists and his sleeves pulled back suddenly as he reached to the back of the top shelf. Ryan's eyes were instantly drawn to several small, round wounds on the pale skin of this boy's arms. Some looked like blisters and others appeared to have been unlucky enough to have been ripped open, and Ryan's gaze was so focused that he noticed a small bit of red fiber stuck to the open circles due to the red jacket that had been hiding them. Startled by these flaws on such a perfect being, Ryan reclaimed custody of his eyes and pushed his locker shut with a metallic bang. The boy did the same and Ryan watched as he practically ran to the restroom, ducking inside quickly, and Ryan started to wonder if the boy had even noticed him watching and staring, or if he was possibly too concerned with whatever had to be happening in his head to notice anything around him. He did not know what to make of this strange boy and he found it hard to concentrate on anything or anyone else. His eyes darted to room numbers and he almost missed room 107, his homeroom, and with further investigation of his schedule, the location of his creative writing class at the end of the day. He smiled at the diminutive, curly haired teacher who was stationed outside the door to greet her students, and Ryan tried to not look like he was lost. The room was already roaring with conversations and laughs despite being only half full. An arrangement of two person tables consumed most of the floor space, four rows of three, and he threw himself down at the empty table in the back. He felt comfortable watching the room from the far right back corner, able to easily slouch down in his chair and go unnoticed, looking miserable because that appearance usually kept people away. Ryan wanted to run away, just for that moment. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to keep the boy in his mind and explore him, let his image take up indefinite residence in his thoughts.
            The bell rang again and Ryan leaned to the right to rest his head against the wall. It was too early for so much thought, but the person he put so much effort into watching had turned Ryan into a confused mess. Between drawing conclusions about the boy and concentrating on the artificial wood grain on the tabletop, he heard the young woman up front introduce herself as Miss Davis and begin taking attendance. Ryan knew he had a bit of time to study the table. If he looked close enough, he could see the magenta, the cyan, the yellow... "Collins?" ...all clustered together in different numbers to create a uniform picture. "Evans?" It reminded him of how he liked to pile on layers to make himself seem interesting... to give himself some depth and keep other things hidden. "Harrison?" It worked for both Ryan and the table. From a distance, it worked, and everything was perfect. Up close, though, everything fell apart and revealed what was hidden, what was plain. Ryan felt at ease knowing that he never shared the table's problem of being examined so closely by prying eyes.
            His disturbingly deep thoughts about artificial wood grain came to an abrupt stop when he sat up to take note of the doorway as he heard footsteps approaching. Agitated, the black haired boy quickly entered the room. He stumbled over the threshold and barely managed to keep himself up off of the ground, which elicited a dull chuckle from several students. Miss Davis gave him a disappointed but affectionate smile and he approached her desk. "I'll let it go, but just try to be on time, alright?" The boy nodded, and Ryan almost copied the motion due to his fascination. He sat up straighter in his chair and he met the boy's eyes for the first time as he walked toward the back of the room. Ryan felt himself melt, and the boy sat down next to him. Their legs brushed as the boy smiled and pulled his chair closer to the table, and Ryan had to look away and keep himself from shaking.
            "Hi."
            "Oh... hey." He was still looking away, wide eyed and probably looking like a scared toddler.
            "Don't mind if I sit here do you?"
            Ryan smiled and shook his head. He soon realized that the awkward feeling that swept over his face was actually what a real smile felt like. He kept smiling and looked back at the boy, who had turned his attention to a page in a notebook, and Ryan only grinned more at the sight of the boy's red-rimmed glasses.
            "Ross? Ryan Ross, are you here?"
            Ryan was startled and had no idea how many times she had called his name. He quickly raised his hand to shoulder level and she smiled at him and made another mark on her sheet of paper. Ryan's face was red with embarrassment from the sudden attention brought on by his severe inability to control his emotions. He couldn't stop thinking about the person next to him, especially as the boy started to nervously squeeze his pen before leaning over, stopping with their faces only inches apart.
            "Don't worry about it, it's not that bad. You just weren't paying attention, it's not like you tripped over the damn door because you're too stupid to walk or anything." His smile revealed perfectly aligned teeth and brown eyes that lit up with the movement of his face.
            Ryan blushed even more and decided that he needed to face forward again or else he would never stop staring. The boy had his arms stretched out on the table in front of himself and they were still covered by his red jacket. Ryan was able to discreetly eye them up, wanting to pull back the sleeves and ask the boy what happened, but there was no possible way. He knew he had to sit there, chest fluttering, and continue to not speak a single word. He knew it would be the longest "five more minutes of homeroom" that he would ever have to sit through. The boy continued writing in the notebook, and Ryan closed his eyes, still not sure of what to think.