Sugarcoated (BoyXBoy)

Sugarcoated {2}

NOAH

"Okay, Mom. Just honk when you're here, I'll come outside. Love you, see you soon." I hung up the phone and tiptoed out of the kitchen. Peering into the living room, I saw that Aiden was scrolling through his phone. I took the opportunity to turn down the hallway and go into the bathroom, silently locking the door behind me.

"Let's see what we have here..." I mumbled, opening the medicine cabinet. I was shocked at the amount of medication that was in in there. It seemed that if each person had their own shelf for their own meds. The top shelf was dusty; I stood on my toes to try and see the names on the pill bottles. Judging by the unfamiliar female name and the amount of dust, it was safe to assume that the medication had belonged to Aiden's mother and he and his father didn't throw out it out as some sort of unspoken respect for her. The next shelf was filled with pain killers, but the last shelf was what had caught my attention; prescription pill bottles all with the name Aiden Stratton typed on them some with recent dates and lots with different dates over the last year.

"Abilify, Zoloft, Buspar, Xanax, Lexapro, Prozac, Ambien..." I couldn't help but mutter these names in awe. Four anti-depressants, anxiety medication, and Xanax? Ambien? By reading "take as needed" I could only assume that it was prescribed for panic attacks. Poor kid, there was no way he needed all this just because of his mother. There had to be something deeper.

Just as I was going to close that medicine cabinet, a glare from something on the shelf had caught my eye. I moved the pill bottle out of the way to find a razor blade. How predictable. Yet it ate at me. Sitting the blade back down, I noticed faint markings on the back of the shelf. Faded marks that looked like tally marks. Yes, it had to be. Each set was four with the fifth mark slashed through. Such a subtle way to count his troubles. If only I knew just what he was counting. That would certainly prove to be interesting.

I shut the cabinet and frantically flushed and washed my hands to cover my tracks and ensure that he didn't know I was going through the medicine. Taking a deep breath and putting on a casual smile, I walked back into the living room and plopped down next to him. He smiled at me and sat his phone down, "You know, Noah," he said sounding very peaceful, "I had a really good day today. And I wanted to thank you for being so nice. I haven't had that in quite some time."

I felt a twinge of guilt shoot through me when he said this, but I didn't let my smile falter. "I had a nice day to Aiden. I could never understand why anyone would be anything but nice to you."

He smiled at me and I smiled back, looking him in the eye. This had intimidated him earlier, but now he seemed okay with it. I hadn't noticed just how blue his eyes were until now. And the eyeliner he had on made them pop even more. I couldn't understand how he didn't have a girlfriend, let alone a friend. He seemed nice enough and he was by no means ugly.

We both jumped as the sound of a car horn blared. I blinked for a second before realizing that was probably my mother, "Oh right, that's my mom. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning for school, yeah?" He nodded, his smile still not faltering. With one last glance at my new-found friend, I left out the front door and made my way to my mother's car.

"Hi, Mom," I mumbled as I got in the car.

"Noah," She replied joyfully, her comforting accent prominent, "Did you have a nice time on your first day at school?"

"Yeah mom, it was alright," I said, bored.

"So, you made a new friend already, huh?"

I grinned and peered out the car window at Aiden's house as Mom pulled away, "Something like that."

***

As I laid in bed that night, I smirked at the ceiling as my thoughts overtook me. Aiden was a troubled kid, no doubt, and I was almost sure that he wasn't quite as awkward as he is now until something messed him up.

This morning at school, I had scanned the hallways for the most interesting person I could find. Then my eyes had landed on Aiden. His depression could be seen in his expression, especially when he looked at groups of friends. I knew then that that would be my ticket to him. Friends was his soft spot, and if I wanted to get inside his mind, that was where I had to start.

Bumping into him, making it look like an accident, it all worked so perfectly. He was so surprised that I had talked to him, I could tell just by his expression, and that made him even more interesting. And things just fell into place.

School would certainly be interesting tomorrow. With the block schedule the school had, there were seven classes, but you had four each day, meaning first block was like homeroom, that was the class that you had on both days. This meant that I still had three classes to go to that I had yet to have. Which meant it was possible I had a class or two with Aiden. And having Aiden in the class too would make the class interesting.

He had mentioned that he used to have a friend; I'm sure that he had probably had more than just the one. But there was something that happened, something that was so bad it had driven away not only his friends, but the entire school.

I was determined to find out what that was. If the entire school was ignoring him, then someone was bound to have a story behind ignoring him. The only problem was, almost without a doubt, each time a story gets passed like that, it gets changed. It could be thrown way out of proportion. That is, unless I can find the source of what happened. Maybe I can find out who he used to be friends with?

What if whatever had happened to him with his friends was why he was on so much medication? That could make sense, perhaps he had dug himself into such a deep rut that he didn't know how to get out besides getting heavily medicated.

The medicine cabinet had told me more about him than he had. He was complicated. He had secrets, demons. That was what made this challenging. I wanted to pick apart every detail about him that I could. After all, what else was there to do in this boring town? Aiden would certainly prove to be a longstanding source of entertainment, and who knows? He might even become more than just a game.

With this thought clear in my mind, I drifted off into a comfortable sleep.