Octopus Lips

The Other End of the String

Johnny's house is pretty much what I expected it to be. A big white ship boarded house in the hills of Minnesota. I can't believe I've never been over here before, it's incredible how much I missed out in my boy's lives, or maybe they're just pushing me away. Lately I can't seem to hake the eerie feeling that my friends don't seem to have things as well together as they liked to admit.

I knocked on the door, it opens after a few minutes and Johnny greeted me. I can't help but amusingly notice he's wearing a sleeveless shirt and his straight ironed black hair is slicked to his face from sweat. As if he had just been working out. Right before the time we both agreed I was going to show up at his house to work on homework. I had always wondered if his attitude was a front or if through and through he was just a player and I guess this is my answer.

"Come on up baby girl. Welcome to my crib." He winked at me.

"Say that again and I'll leave." I warned him.

"Aye, noted."

He led me to the stairs of his house which were a good way through his house. I passed his parents sitting their living room, his dad watching tv and his mom was on the phone in the next room, pacing. Johnny waved at them, flopped against the stairwell like a wet towel.

"Mom, dad, this is Gwen we'll be upstairs studying."

"Great. Johnny is there any chance you can pick Arthur up from play practice in thirty minutes?" His mom pressed her phone against her chest briefly.

"I'm studying, mom." He scoffed, "Ask dad. C'mon Gwen."

She sighed but didn't stop us as Johnny took the rest of the stairs two by two. Johnny's room was a dark green color, I noticed there a collection of polaroids sitting above a desk I figured that was Chase's work. Other then that it was a normal teenage boy's room, once that he had very obviously tried to pick up earlier because Johnny glanced around cluelessly for a few moments before locating his backpack.

"Here, um, here." He pulls out the chair to his desk and suggests I sit down.

"Alright bud, where are you struggling?"

He flipped through the math book until he got the most recent lesson and kind of just blankly gestured to the page. Oh boy. Thirty minutes later I've worked through half the problems and received the same blank, jittery expression from him. There's a mental glass in front of his eyes that's causing all my words to come out distorted and blurry I could tell.

"You're not paying attention." I frowned.

He glanced up at me. "Wh-what? No?"

"What was I just talking about?"

He opened his mouth, then when nothing came out I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah, I thought so."

"Aw c'mon Gwen... I haven't given you the names yet."

I sighed. "I'm starting to wonder if they're worth it. What's bothering you anyway?"

"Nothing." He shrugged.

"It's obviously something. Is it Chase? School? Homelife? You can talk to me." I assured, amused at myself. I sound like Micah.

"Nah... it's nothing really."

I'm disappointed to say the least. "Okay, then we can go back to math."

"Okay fine..." He raised his hands in defeat. "Your um... your string. Chase told me you cut it?"