Stolovan Thing

Chapter 7

~Kevin~

I can't believe that Clyde is at my house right now. I genuinely hope that my complete nervousness isn't too obvious to him... it's Clyde though, I doubt he'd notice.

I shakily open the front door. My mom looks away from the tv to look at me. "Kevin, can you-..." her gaze leaves me and focuses on Clyde. "Who's this?" She raises a brow.

She has a right to be confused, I normally don't bring someone over at all, unless it's Douglas of course. "Oh, um... mom, this is Clyde... and Clyde, these are my parents..." I introduce them. My dad still hasn't looked away from the tv, he's gotten used to my mom doing everything. "We're going to work on a project for school..." I muttered awkwardly, rushing upstairs, followed by Clyde. My heart was pounding, it felt like it was about to hop out of my chest. My crush is in my house and I just introduced him to my parents.

Esther should be home soon, she'll come in and bug us when she does. I looked at Clyde as he followed me into my room. He looked upset, like he was on the verge of tears.

"Clyde..?" I asked hesitantly. This boy always wore his emotions on his sleeve. It was impossible for him to hide anything.

He gives me a pained smile as he tries to blink away his tears. "Yeah?" He chokes out.

I reach my hand out to him as he sits next to me on my bed. "What's wrong?.." I ask, he lets me put my hand on his cheek.

I watch as a few tears fell down his face. "I just miss my mom!" He sobbed pretty loudly, making me flinch.

I remember the day his mom passed. I remember the day of her funeral. I didn't go to it but I remember the day Clyde came back to school. He was miserable for weeks. I remember the debates about whether or not he was at fault, whether "the blood was on his penis" or not. I've heard the stories about the sue-ance. No one actually paid attention to how sad Clyde was or the fact that his mother had passed, they just cared about whether men should put the toilet seat down or whether women should look before plopping down mindlessly onto the seat. I'm sure that made it harder for him. Seeing my mom probably reminded him of that.

I boldly pull him into a hug. I'll let him cry it out as long as he needs to, we have time. He hugs back, clutching my sweater like it was going to save his life.

It's really sad that after all this time, he still can't stop himself from crying every time he thinks of her, he must really love his mom.

He cries and we hug for a good thirty minutes. His tears soaked through my sweater a while ago and it was slightly uncomfortable touching my skin. He let go of the hug. "I'm sorry..." he muttered shyly, that's something I didn't think he was capable of, being shy. He proceeded to tell me things I already knew, about his mom and how he used to be called "crybaby".

I let him talk it all out. When he was finally done, I took the opportunity to speak. "It's okay to feel, Clyde. You're not an emotionless robot. What happened to your mom was awful, the response it got from the town was awful. You're allowed to cry, you're human." I would suggest to him to not care so much but Clyde being who he is, he can't.

He smiled gently at me. "Kev..." was all he said. He normally is the most talkative person in the world. Esther then burst in.

"Kevin, I'm going to borrow your VR thing again." She looked directly at us, but didn't question anything. She just grabbed my VR headset, and disappeared.

"Okay.." I mumbled after she shut the door. She barely gave me any time to say anything while she was in here.

"Esther's your sister?.." He asked. To that I nodded.