camping trip (randy short story)

chapter 9

Andy's POV
I woke up quite late, since I hadn't been able to fall asleep. It was hard when the butterflies in my stomach wouldn't dissappear. To know that Rye liked me was almost worst than not knowing. I had finally found back to myself and now here he was, messing it all up agaim. But it didn't matter. Having Rye back was everything I really wanted.
I had a couple of new messages on my phone. They were from Jack, who clearly had ended up pretty drunk. I didn't understand half of what he had written. I moved on to snapchat and my breath hitched. A chat from Rye.

I opened it and the only thing it said was 'thanks'. I didn't know what to answer. Did he remember what he had said and done? Had Harvey told him? I had no idea. So the only thing I wrote was 'no problem'. He was probably still asleep so he wouldn't answer for a while. If he even answered.

I got my answer one hour later. He actually did respond. 'what did i say?' he wrote. I didn't know what to write. Should I tell him? But he hadn't told me before which meant he didn't want me to know. I suddenly got inseacure. I decided to do it easy for myself. 'what did Harvey tell you?' I wrote and immediately saw his bitmoji pop up. 'nothing really'. I bit my lip, thinking. If I told him I knew, how would he react? The sight of his bitmoji stressed me and I decided to just write what he had said and done.

I explained how I had come in and hadn't noticed him at first. Then how he had told me that he was about to have sex with a girl, but didn't get it to work. Beacuse I had been on his mind. I told him that he hadn't realized that I was the Andy he was talking about. I ended it with the part about when he started crying and that I helped him get to Harvey.

I breathed out and turned off my phone once I was done. I didn't mention that he had told me that the girl he was about to do it with, had become pretty mad at him. He had plenty to deal with anyways. I didn't dare looking at my phone for a good 10 minutes. When I did, tears ran down my face.

'you are lying'

***

"I don't understand him" Jack said. He and Brook came over as soon as I texted them. We were laying in my bed, I was in the middle.
"Why doesn't he just confess?"

"Like I've said, he's scared" Brook said and yawned.

"But of what? There are plenty of gays in our school and they don't get bullied" Jack argued. He was right. Homophobia wasn't a problem at our school, which all of us were grateful for.

"Maybe he has problems at home" Brook suggested. I just laid there, listening. I had thought through it too many times already.

"I doubt it" Jack said. I did too. I didn't get that feeling around him. He had told me about his brothers and had mentioned how close his family was. He could've lied, but I didn't believe so.
Brook and Jack stopped talking about it. Instead, they started telling me about what had happened at the party after I left. It was nice of them, I enjoyed to think about something else.

After a while, I went on my phone instead. The movie we were watching wasn't any good. My fingers clicked on Rye's profile but there wasn't any new posts or stories. He wasn't very active. I thought about posting a picture of me and write some sort of cryptic text, so he would understand. But I wasn't really the type who did those kind of things. If that had been the case, I'd have already posted a black picture with the text 'i'm loggin out. don't know when i'll come back 💔'. Like all the girls did. Instead I sighed and looked through my feed.

***

Monday came, faster than I wanted it to. I had spent some time with mum during the sunday and that had been nice. But of course school had to just show up even though no one wanted it to. I walked to school, to get some time for myself. I had tried to stop thinking about a soulotion for Rye and me, but I couldn't. I couldn't accept that it was hopeless. Beacuse it wasn't, it couldn't be. Rye liked me and I knew it.

I sighed when I walked against the doors. To lay in bed now wouldn't be too bad, I thought for myself.

"Andy" I heard Harvey's voice behind me. I gulped, not having expected that. I turned around and was scared to see Rye, but it was only Harvey.

"Did he tell you?" he asked and sounded excited. "I haven't talked to him so I thou-"

"He wrote that I lied" I cut him off and saw on Harvey's face how dissapointed he got.

"I'm sorry" he said and actually looked sorry. But it wasn't his fault. "We'll talk later" he said when his other friends appear. Not a conversation to have in front of them.

I continued walking. I wasn't really sad beacuse of what Rye had written, I was more frustrated of why he had to lie. And I didn't know what to do about it. I went to my locker and realized that, fuck, my first class was english. My second sigh since I entered the school left my mouth.
When I walked into the classroom, he was already there. I also saw Brook, Jack and Sonny sit in different corners of the room. Jack and Sonny waved but Brook didn't notice. He was busy making a paperplane. Reluctantly, I walked to my seat and sat down. Rye stared at the table and fingered on his pencil. We were at the back in the classroom.

"Goodmorning" ms Robinson said when she entered the classroom. She sat down her things on her table before starting talking again. Apperantly we were starting the year with writing a novel. Literally everyone in the classroom sighed. When she was done talking, everyone was supposed to start their work. I couldn't really concentrate when he was sitting beside me. It was annoying. I opened my laptop to "find information" when I really went on instagram.

"Andy" Rye whispered after a while of silence. The whole classroom was quiet, for once. I turned my head to look at him, and fuck, I always fell for his eyes. It was like his eyes were saying things he never did. Telling me stories.

"I-" he was cut off by the fire alarm. Hundreds of curses crossed my mind. Ms Robinson looked slightly panicked but guided us out just like she was suppossed to. Instead of beging afraid of a fire, I thought about brown, dreamy eyes. Rye had disappeared into the crowd of people.

Sorry if I got your hopes up. I hope you enjoyed :)

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