Positively Negative [Rewrite]

Aug24: We, The Waves

[EDITED THE END OF THE LAST CHAPTER, in case any of y'all wanna reread it. It's not too vital. Additionally, a long chapter. Very long indeed.]

[Carry on. ]

FREDDIE

"Okay, what the hell happened?!"

"Eh?!"

Tom dragged a wooden chair from under the cafeteria table and twirled it around so that he could successfully straddle it as he stared intensely into my eyes. Two more seconds of the staring and his lips cracked into an inevitable smile.

"Hey, Fredster," he sang.

"Hey," I replied with a smile of my own, grabbing a chip from Sherry's tray. "What are you talking about?"

He scraped his chair closer and looked around the cafeteria as Paige sat on the chair beside him, closely followed by Jenny on his other side, ripping open the cellophane around her sandwich straight away.

"That Joey guy," she said, and then she took a big bite.

My thoughts went to the image I'd seen after I'd gone looking for Mr Chou after Business. Mr Hyde claimed to have given Mr Chou my Business trip letter, and I had to get it back and return it by the end of the week—but found Joey crying- I swear he was crying- in the Philosophy room, being comforted by our form tutor. My throat had closed up, seeing that, and it did again, just then.

"Guessing you've heard the rumours?" Sherry asked, leaning forward. "Can you believe that guy?!"

"I really can't," I said. "It's not true."

"That's what I'm asking," Tom continued, resting an elbow on the table and his chin on his palm. "We just heard in Media that he got off with you at his house," I blushed, eyebrows raised, "Like, where the hell do people get this shit from?"

I swirled my spork around my pasta. "Uh..."

"From Freddie being at Joey's house," Sherry said.

"What?"

Lettuce hung from the roof of Paige's mouth, and several bread crumbs dropped down her top. Jenny's eyes were wide with disbelief, and Tom's expression was so comically shocked that I couldn't help chuckling into the sporkful I brought to my mouth.

"Did you guys fuck?!" Jenny whispered.

I choked, "For God-sake, no. It was a totally coincidental meeting that happened on the beach, and it got late, and he offered that I could stay over. He's straight. That's it." And that was it—he was straight, but I was riddled with issues because, all of a sudden, I could not stop thinking about the guy. He was everywhere I looked, underlined in some way and impossible to ignore. His words and his touch at the beach—he feared everything. His laugh and his easy smile at his house—so relaxed. With his mum and best friend. His face when he'd flinched, and the hesitant shape of his lips as he pronounced la noche del estreno, or asustado, or labios agrietados.

That expression on his face that I so badly wanted to deconstruct and understand as he drifted out of the window and elsewhere in every Spanish lesson.

Three eyes looked at me, bewildered, while Sherry grinned to my left. "Still, he and his girlfriend break up not long after. Not so coincidental. You think he wants your dick?"

My gaze fell to my bowl of pasta. It was growing cold as quickly as my appetite was disappearing. "Shut up, Sherry."

"B-but," Paige stuttered, "What the fuck, isn't he the one who did that thing on that day you found out, you know..?"