Heart and Soul - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

On Thursday, Johnny was in and out of Calculus like a dart again.
Carter didn't try to chase him this time. He did notice the bruise on his cheek was evolving to a darker red. He also tried to search for any changes in Coach's behavior during practice. The man seemed normal, though. Maybe a bit grumpy, and a little red-faced toward the end from all the shouting, but neither of those things were exactly out of the ordinary.
"I don't need a ride today," Carter told Seth as the team flooded back into the locker room. "Got something I need to do."
"Is it something quick?" Seth asked. "Do you want me to wait for you?"
"No, it's fine."
The truth was Carter didn't know how long it would be. He had only just decided it was something he was going to do.
Seth gave him an inquisitive look, but didn't press any further.
Carter and Mel didn't meet on Thursdays to study, because she had other activities. Still, after rushing through a quick shower, he went to the library.
He smiled at Mrs Lewis on the way in and she grinned back. With the sure step that indicated all the confidence he wasn't feeling, Carter made his way to the secluded, mostly empty tables in the back. As he had hoped—yet not known for sure—Johnny was there.
He was sitting in the same corner as usual, in front of his laptop, with a book opened on the side and his earphones on. He didn't notice Carter until he pulled a chair in front of him.
Johnny's eyes widened slightly in surprise, clearly caught off guard. His disarmed expression quickly dissolved into a harsher mask of annoyance though, as he removed his earphones.
"What?" Johnny whispered gratingly.
Carter ignored the unpleasant jab that tone poked in his gut and leaned forward. "What happened to you?" He asked quietly.
Johnny inhaled, as though readying himself for an answer he'd practiced many times before. "I fell in the—"
"The stairs?" Carter interrupted. "Yeah, that's what you said to the nurse. The day we met."
"The day we met," Johnny started slowly, "I told her you hit me with a door. Which was what happened."
"I meant before," Carter explained impatiently. "She said you'd been there before. And your dad too. They didn't seem convinced by your story then, and I am not convinced now."
"I'm clumsy," Johnny said in a toneless voice.
"Johnny."
"Carter," Johnny delivered back in a shallower tone.
Carter sighed. Johnny was stubborn. Too stubborn. Carter would never win a dispute of witty comebacks with him. He couldn't do this thing where they danced around the obvious topic without actually talking about it. He lacked the knack for that.
"I know the kind of bruise a fist leaves on a face when I see it," Carter whispered plainly, going for the more direct approach instead.
Johnny's expression hardened. "Punch many people on your free time?" He asked.
Carter didn't respond to that. He wasn't going to fall for it and let himself be dragged back into their previous pattern. No dancing around the topic.
"Who did that to you?" He insisted.
Johnny was stubborn, but Carter could be too. He was head-bound on showing Johnny just how much.
It seemed Johnny didn't want to see it, though. He closed his eyes, taking a breath in and holding it. When his eyes opened, there was a softer edge to them. A silent plea shining through.
"Can you just let it go?"
Carter watched the vulnerability in his look. Johnny was asking him nicely. He had read the tone Carter was trying to set for the conversation and tried to use it in his favor. Speaking plainly and openly. Had he asked for anything else, anything at all, Carter would have given in right then and there. Given into those warm, honey eyes.
Honey eyes tainted by a bruise. A large, ugly bruise on Johnny's left cheek. Of an angry, dark red color.
Carter shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "I can't let this go, Johnny. Somebody hurt you. I think somebody has hurt you before too. I can't just let it go and you shouldn't be asking me to."
Johnny's face was a look of anxious despair, well hidden beneath a veil of irritation. He bit down on his bottom lip and, in following the action with his gaze, a thought occurred to Carter.
Another memory from the day they had met. The day Carter had accidentally hit Johnny with a door while texting and walking. The day when he knocked Johnny to the floor with the impact and demanded he let Carter take him to the nurse's office, after seeing his injuries. Even though Johnny said it hadn't been Carter's fault.
At the time, Carter thought it was a joke. Because Johnny, in true Johnny fashion, had said it with flippant humorous cynicism. But, in the light of recent events, Carter couldn't help question that.
"It has happened before, right?" Carter whispered. "The day we met. Probably before that, but that day too. Before I hit you."
Carter felt like an idiot. Clueless and insensitive. The same clueless, insensitive idiot who hadn't even noticed Johnny's existence until they literally crashed into each other.
Johnny started shaking his leg under the table. Carter wasn't sure that was something he was aware, but he didn't say anything because Johnny leaned forward to talk first.
"If I say yes," he whispered shakily. "If I confirm your suspicions and pat your inner Nancy Drew on the shoulder, will you leave it alone?"
"Tell me who did it."
Johnny huffed, throwing his head back in exasperation. "Why won't you just let this the fuck go?"
"Because I'm worried about you," Carter answered without even having to give himself a moment to think.
"A month ago, you didn't even know who I was," he said with a dead simplicity that didn't match the flame in his eyes.
"I do now," he murmured. "And I know you need help."
Johnny shook his head. "I didn't ask for help."
"Doesn't mean you don't need it," Carter was quick to shoot back.
There were a few minutes of silence. Strange silence. Heavy with the tone of their conversation, but comfortable nonetheless.
"Well," Johnny broke the quiet, letting his fingers fiddle with the corner of the page of the book he had been reading. "If you really want to help me right now, you'll just give me peace to finish my book."
"I'm not leaving," Carter stated firmly, though his inflection was lighter.
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Fine. Then you can sit there and watch me read until the library closes."
"Fine." Carter shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his seat. He kept staring at Johnny.
Johnny narrowed his eyes at him. "Seriously?"
A little smile tugged at Carter's lips. "Yup."
"Surely you have better things to do," Johnny mumbled, a little testy. But Carter could still see that the harshness in his eyes had dissipated.
"Nope," Carter popped his lips on the 'p' sound. "I'm completely unoccupied."
Johnny's lips twitched at the corners, only slightly, like he was fighting a smile. Carter didn't fight his. Johnny lowered his head, letting his hair fall over his face as he fixed his eyes on the hardcover book spread open next to his laptop. Carter stayed put, shamelessly keeping his eyes on the other boy.
He was used to glancing over at Johnny every other minute during Calculus class, or in his study sessions in the library with Mel. In either context, Johnny had always excelled at ignoring him. Carter had assumed he didn't even notice his staring. But it seemed Johnny had a little more difficulty disregarding Carter's attention when they were sitting right in front of each other.
Carter bit down on a smile when Johnny glanced up for the tenth time to see the stubborn quarterback still staring at him. With a little sigh, Johnny leaned back on his seat, pulling the book with him. Carter's eyes moved away from the object of his insistent attention for the first time then, to read the title on the cover. Something about National Aeronautics Something, in big bold letters, over the image of a rocket taking off.
When Carter's gaze settled back on Johnny, the other boy was already looking at him.
"You like Aeronautics?" Carter asked quietly, even though there was no one in the library to disturb.
Johnny pursed his lips to bite back the smile. "National Aeronautics and Space Administration," Johnny clarified, lifting the book a little bit for Carter to see the whole title. There was more to it, below the bold letters, but Carter couldn't read that.
"NASA," Johnny added.
"Cool."
Johnny grinned. "Didn't know you were such a NASA enthusiast," he commented sarcastically, with a playful glimmer in his eyes.
Carter winced. "I'm not," he muttered back.
"I know," Johnny mused ambiguously.
Carter tilted his head a little to the side. "How would you know?" He smiled.
"Our class visited the Kennedy Space Center last year," Johnny reminded him. "You and Melanie Jones disappeared to hook up in a corner, while we were being given the tour."
Carter bit down on his bottom lip. He remembered that school trip. He remembered the journey to Merritt Island with his friends, he remembered Coach Mason and Mrs Philips from Physics overseeing their group, and he even remembered his escapade with Mel and how Coach caught them and sent them back off to their group with maximum discretion. The only thing Carter didn't remember was Johnny.
"It's closing time, dear," Mrs Lewis told him in a quiet thin voice, materializing herself to Carter's side to bring him back into the present moment.
"Oh." Carter looked up at her, but didn't move.
Johnny wasn't moving either. He looked between a still Carter and a frail Mrs Lewis, before smiling politely.
"It's okay, he's going with me," he told the elderly librarian. Mrs Lewis's grin simply broadened and she shuffled away.
"You really are influential around here," Carter teased.
Johnny gave him a half-smile before leaning over his book again. "I want to finish this chapter before I leave. So, if you want to stay, you're gonna have to be quiet."
Carter laughed and Johnny looked up from the book to raise both eyebrows at him. Carter pursed his lips, mimicking the motion of zipping his mouth shut before showing his hands up in surrender. Johnny rolled his eyes, but his teeth dug into his bottom lip to conceal a smile nonetheless. Carter did nothing to hide his, while he stared at Johnny as he finished his reading.
When the other boy finally closed the book with a pleasant thump, Carter grabbed his stuff. Johnny closed his laptop, slid it into his backpack and stood up with the book under his arm.
"Help me put the chairs in place," Johnny said, setting his stuff on the tabletop.
A little confused, Carter dropped his bags on the table as well, helping Johnny set the chairs in their rightful place close to the tables. They did that to every chair in the entire library and, as they did, Johnny would pick up any book that was out of place and slip it back in its correct spot on the shelves. Carter tried helping with that too, but he wasn't as well-acquainted with the disposition of everything.
They stopped by Mrs Lewis's desk on the way out. "Do you need help with anything else?" Johnny asked politely.
The older woman smiled warmly at him. "It's alright, dear. Thank you for your help."
Johnny returned the smile. It was a kind honest one, without a single trace of smart humor or sarcastic mockery. "You're welcome," Johnny said.
"See you tomorrow, dear."
"See you tomorrow, Mrs Lewis."
"So," Carter mused, as they walked together to the school parking lot. "You really are always here."
Johnny smiled, but this time it was a crooked sly smile. "You thought I was joking? Maybe lying to sound cool—Because who doesn't love library rats?"
Carter laughed and his chest fluttered pleasantly when he noticed Johnny's little smile. As they stepped outside, Johnny shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"My car's that way," he said, nodding his head to the left.
Carter stopped walking. "Oh," he said. "Bye then. I guess."
Johnny waited for him to start moving. When Carter just stood there, he bit down on his lip.
"Do you need a ride?" Johnny asked softly.
Carter shrugged. "I can walk."
Johnny raised his eyebrows. "It's still a long way," he argued skeptically.
"Maybe my stepbrother can pick me up. I can call him."
"Or I could just drive you," Johnny suggested humorously.
Carter rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess. If it's not too much of a detour."
Johnny smiled in amusement. "I think we established, in a previous similar conversation, that it's not," he said.
Carter rolled his eyes but he still laughed at his own expense. He didn't know why he acted like this around Johnny, but it felt as though his brain only worked at half capacity whenever the other boy was near. And Carter had a feeling it probably looked like he was running on less than that, from where Johnny was standing.
They walked to the car in silence and continued the ride the same way. Carter tried to search his mind for a topic, but he kept coming in blank.
More than once, he had the impression Johnny was getting ready to say something, or maybe ask, but he never did. So, they kept quiet until Johnny stopped the car in front of the Santoro residence.
"That's you, right?"
"Yeah." Carter turned his head to look at Johnny. "Thanks."
"Anytime," Johnny replied with a small smile.
Carter hesitated with his hand on the door.
Johnny looked like he was waiting for him to say something. Nothing came up to Carter, though. So, instead of saying anything, he shot Johnny one last awkward smile for good measure and slipped off the car to run a quick sprint toward the house. When he turned around by the front door, before going in, Johnny's car was already disappearing at the end of the street.