CALVIN

two: the search history

"Did you know Calvin Taylor lives in his dad's house?"

Patrick peeled the leathery orange peel off a mandarin in one go. He flicked it into the trash bin.

I sat up on the bed. 

"Does he really?" I asked. 

"Yep. Leon told me."

"How does Leon know where Calvin lives?"

"Well apparently, Leon wanted to study with him at his house, but Calvin said that his classmates shouldn't really come to his house because he lives with his parents so they just came to our house."

I slid off the bed and walked over to Patrick's desk. "Wait wait wait... Leon studied?"

Patrick popped a mandarin crescent into his mouth. "Right? This week has been very eventful. You know, Leon's actually really smart. He just doesn't apply himself."

"I don't apply myself either, and I still get good grades."

"Well that's because you're a celestial, omnipotent being."

"Thank you. Finally, somebody recognizes my sexual orientation."

I walked back to my bed. It was a little one, in the corner of the room. Bigger than last year's, though, and I was grateful for that. Still felt like it was too small.

Patrick opened his physics text book gently and rummaged through the jar on his desk before he found the pen he was looking for. 

"Do you ever just want to get out of here?" he asked, tapping his pen on his bottom lip.

"What the fuck do you mean by that? Of course I want to get out of here. What type of question is that, Patrick? You think I don't want to get out of here? This place is toxic. Like, Hendrik and Louisa. That type of toxic."

"I thought for a second you were going to make a reference to Britney Spears."

"No," I said. "No no no. That's the good type of toxic. I'm not going to throw Britney under the bus like that. Fuck."

"I just think that..." Patrick had bought a high-end spinney chair halfway through last school year. Most people were jealous about it, because most people had those hard wooden ones that have made every girl on campus unintentionally lose their virginity. I didn't understand why they didn't just go out and buy comfortable cheap ones from IKEA for like twenty euros. They have no problem spending that amount on a bottle of whiskey they'll drink periodically throughout the week just to pretend that they're as sophisticated as their rich dads. 

Anyways, my point was that Patrick used that nice enviable spinney chair to spin around awkwardly while he tapped his pen on his bottom lip and talked. "Well I imagine the alternative quite often. What would happen if I'd stayed at my old school. Maybe I'd still be top of my class."

"But you're already top of this class, Patrick."

"No, I'm not. Louisa and Daria are better than me. They got 41s on their last blitzlichts."

"Don't say that word," I said, sulking. "I fucking hate that word."

"How could you hate - "

"It gives me fucking PTSD, Patrick. It reminds me of grades and... school."

"You live at school. How are you not reminded of school every single moment of the fucking day? Like, even when I'm taking a shit I'm painfully aware of how much school there is around me."

"Shut the fuck up."

"But don't you think..." (I could tell he was invested in this topic, because he'd completely forgotten the rest of his mandarin on his desk) "... don't you ever think that maybe it was a bad decision?"