flirting with disaster

one

            It had been a bit of a sleepless night for Andy. You see, he liked to believe that everything had its place, and he liked things best when they stayed there. Unfortunately, the world didn't have much respect for this desire, and seemed to enjoy, even, constantly mucking things up for Andy. This launched him into an almost constant state of unease, relieved from him only when he became fully absorbed into his work, or when he carried out his rituals.

He knew well enough that his actions were borderline obsessive, but he continued to catalogue himself as just "neat," for his own self-respect and sanity. The world just made more sense when he was able to align his school supplies on his desk – Two fully sharpened pencils (One to use, and one just in case that one broke,) a hand-held pencil sharpener (which was routinely used by the whole class, because the school was either too broke to buy one, or merely preferred to use their assets to purchase that brand new coffee maker in the teacher's lounge,) three pens (one black, one blue, and one red,) and a yellow highlighter. (Of course, he still kept extras in his backpack, but he preferred having the basics right in front of him, so he didn't have to distract the class with constant zipping and unzipping while he attempted to suavely retrieve what he was looking for.)

It just made sense to Andy, the studious alumni that he was, to take extremely detailed and organized notes, or to check the lock on his door three times each night for extra safety and security. And he liked having a solid, easy, predictable routine – He woke up each morning and brushed his teeth before making breakfast (Usually toast or cereal, he was no chef,) and then getting dressed. He always put his right shoe on first, and then his left. (Oh, and he was the sort to tie and untie his shoes every time he took them off and then put them back on again. He never liked to take the easy way out, even when he was exhausted.) His school schedule was always the same, with a pause in the middle for lunch in the library. The term 'lunch' was used loosely, of course. Most days, he simply used the time to pleasure read or study. On days that he was really starving, he'd scarf down an energy bar on the walk to his refuge from the rest of the world, and the chaotic mess that was the high school cafeteria.

Rye never ate there, either – He and his group of friends practically owned the corner in the outside courtyard, where they'd share whatever fast food had been brought for them by whoever had snuck off of campus on that particular day. It was their spot for a quick cigarette break, too, where they pretended – Or just genuinely didn't give a fuck, Andy could never tell – That it wasn't painfully obvious by the leftover smell of nicotine and the cigarette butts that littered the ground. Both the students and staff knew, but nobody ever bothered to do anything about it, possibly because messing with them was almost never worth it.

Either way, Rye loitered around in his corner of the school, and Andy stayed in his, and their paths never collided. (The only reason that they even shared a class together was for Andy to have a breather from the rest of his AP and Honors classes, and Rye had somehow scored high enough to land himself in that one ACP class of his entire high school career.) (Insert a chorus of teachers reciting "You have so much potential, if only you put in the effort!" here.) This was part of the reason why it was so difficult for Andy to wrap his head around their interaction. It had been a week, but he was still losing sleep over how kind he had been, and how a boy like him, who seemed to pay no care to the world around him, could possibly have anxiety attacks, and how beautiful his brown eyes were...

Andy hated that he couldn't make this one piece of his life fit with the others, hated that he was overthinking this one specific instance that probably meant nothing, hated that he was thinking about it even now, and he'd read the same paragraph in his book a good five times without actually absorbing anything, and he hated that he couldn't just write it all off to exhaustion, because the reason that he'd been so restless last night was because he'd been thinking so much about it. Still, that was the good thing about the library – Despite there being nowhere for Andy to escape from his own thoughts, at least here he could escape from other people and wallow in his miseries alone.

So you can imagine just how startled Andy was when somebody slid into the seat next to his – Like, startled enough to jump up in his seat a little, which made Rye chuckle, a deep and throaty sound that made Andy blush, and then subsequently want to strangle Rye for flicking his hair and looking so cute when he was pretty much everything that Andy stood against – Or, at least, everything that Andy wasn't.

"Sorry for scaring you. I was just wondering if you could help me with the history homework?" Rye leaned in a bit, his eyes steady on Andy's, and it surprised him to find that he didn't smell stale and musty, like a human cigarette – In fact, he smelled more like the caramel that he was pushing from one side of his mouth to the other. Rye noticed Andy watching, and added "Werther's caramel, but it's chocolate in the middle. D'ya want one?" And he moved as if to get him one, which was just one more thing that Didn't fit for Andy, because bad boys didn't just go around carrying chocolate caramels in their pockets unless they were filled with poison or something.

The words that came out of Andy's mouth were "No, it's fine," and he immediately cursed himself inwardly because he did, actually, have an interest in trying the chocolate/poison caramel. Rye simply shrugged, taking the loss well, before repeating his question about the homework. Various questions lay at the tip of Andy's tongue, such as – Why me? Why now? How did you know I'd be here? But, alas, once more his mouth betrayed him, and what he actually said was "It was classwork." It came out much more sassy and sarcastic than he had originally planned, and he flinched back at his own voice, almost as if he expected Rye to strike him for it. If anything, though, it merely intrigued Rye, producing an entirely too sexy and coMPLETELY UNWARENTED smirk on his face.

"Yeah, but Ms. Warnkey said that it would be homework if we didn't finish it in class. So, yeah, of course you probably have it finished already, so maybe it was a little stupid for me to-"

"No, no, its fine," Andy cut him off, already closing his book and reaching for his history notebook, filled with enough information that their teacher could leave and Andy could take over and teach the class for her just as easily. "Just tell me what's confusing you."

In return, Rye pulled out a much less organized and much more crumpled piece of paper from the pit that was his own backpack and slid it over to where both he and Andy could see it. But before he could even point anything out, Andy was already correcting and explaining his mistakes – Both in the answers and in his spelling and grammar, which Rye found to be a little extra and unnecessary, but put up with anyways. The truth was, Rye didn't care if his answers were right or wrong. He had long since given up on everything, and it was probably the first piece of homework that he'd turn in for that class. He hadn't come to Andy purely for academic help – There had just been some string in his heart that had been pulled at when he saw Andy looking so dismayed, and this same string kept making his heart skip a beat whenever he saw him, and he was determined to fight out why.

He'd just about decided that it was the way he crinkled his nose so cutely, which kept making his glasses slip a little bit, and the scattering of freckles across his cheeks, and the way he kept absentmindedly licking his lips, when Andy stopped speaking, and he realized that his lunchtime lesson was over, and the only wisdom that Rye had gained was that maybe Andy was something worth not giving up on. Still, he left with a simple nod, no thank-yous or glances backwards, even though his heart was beating double speed – After all, he still had a reputation to uphold.

Andy was left looking after him, feeling one part hurt, one part even more confused, and one part head-over-heels with this boy who, Andy was learning, was much, much more than just how he appeared on the surface. Once he finished gaping after him like a lovestruck puppy – Get it together, Fowler! – He dejectedly turned back to the table, already trying to sink back into school mode, because Calculous, at least, were problems that could be solved, but he stopped in his train of thought when he saw what was resting on the top of his notebook – A chocolate Werther's caramel.
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thank you so so much for your instant support for this story. i don't think i've ever had something gain reads so quickly before??
i just wanted to say,, my life isn't perfect in many ways and neither am i, but i have always known that i wanted to become more than i am and hopefully help somebody with my writing; to make a change. thank yous for believing in me. it gives value to my life.