flirting with disaster

four

           

Andy and his mom had a nightly routine, and it started with her coming home from a long day at work. Her hair would be falling loose from the bun that she had quickly wrapped it up into in the morning, and her foundation would have worn off just enough to reveal her wrinkles, showing her age. And she would be tired, always so tired, but happy to see her son for the first time that day.

            She would check in on him in his room, not to see if he was doing his homework, because of course he was, but to see if he had taken a shower yet. There was the common misconception that OCD was repetitive cleansing, washing one's hands time and time again until they were cracked and bleeding, and, surely, for some people, it was – But not for Andy. For Andy, it was doing his math homework and then double-checking, and triple-checking, an answer that he already knew was right, but, really, he should check it one more time just in case.

            Not every night was like this, and sometimes he could get away with doing his homework and then moving on easily – But when things shifted places, and the repetitiveness of his routine was interrupted, he felt an even stronger desire, need, even, to get this one piece of the puzzle to fit. And the only part of Rye that could be depended on was that he couldn't be. He was always going to be changing and surprising Andy and cutting classes based purely on how he felt that day, and his moods themselves were even more eccentric.

            Andy still wasn't quite sure why he was drawn to this walking hurricane, which was bothersome enough in itself, but he was bound to get hurt when it came to flirting with disaster. And he was pretty sure that that was what they were doing, despite having no expertise in it whatsoever. Andy had never had much time for crushes, never felt quite drawn to the girls that he heard the other guys fussing over, never quite understood why he, or anyone, would ever let 'love' get in the way of his studies – But perhaps this was why.

            Because Rye had actually bothered to show up to class today, and when he had walked in, a little after the late bell but still casually, slowly, he had looked over at Andy before gliding into his seat. He'd been chewing a piece of gum, forbidden in classrooms but yet, somehow, always found their way into them anyways, and there was just something about the action and the small movement of his lips that made Andy's heart feel like it was about to fall out of his chest. So, really, the eyebrow quirk and quick smirk and formation of his lips into a 'duck face,' as the girls called it, but a kiss, as Andy took it to be, was highly unnecessary.

            But Rye was frivolous and careless and extra and he didn't really think about the fact that Andy, who never let anything get in the way of his studies, was still thinking about his lips and how he pushed the gum around his mouth like that stupid caramel that Andy had actually rather enjoyed, and even as he did his work, in the back of his mind Andy was kind of wondering what kissing was like, and what kissing Rye was like, to be specific, and would it taste like that chocolate caramel or the gum (and what flavor was it anyways?) (It was bubblegum, snatched from Mikey in the middle of the hallway.)

            Andy had taken it as a sign that maybe, he wasn't the only one obsessing over their situation, and maybe, Rye would come and visit him again at lunch. So he had prepared himself for it mentally, and he hadn't really gotten any work done as he waited for the boy of bruises and battle scars and storms in his head to walk up and throw Andy just a little more off kilter. But he didn't, which effectively worked to have the same effect, because now Andy was hunched over his paper and working out the same equation for the seventh time. Just in case.

            And his mum, tired eyes and dilapidating bun and all, knew her son better than anyone else, and she could tell when there was a current in his head that he was struggling against, and she could tell when his head was underwater, like now. Because on the days that he was, he hardly mumbled a greeting to her to acknowledge her existence, and he ignored her question entirely, because he had more important things to focus on, like making sure the number he ended up with was the same as it was the six times before.