Straight Boys - Chapter 33: Chapter 33

"Zachary."
I sighed. Not again.
"Zachary... Wake up... Wake up."
No. Please, not again.
"Wake up, Zachary... Wake. Up."
I can't.
"Wake up... Wake up."
The lilting voice in my head, with lips rose-petal-red and skin running-water smooth, spoke to me. She whispered, shakily, motherly, then progressed into a bestial banshee's bellow.
She was far away.
Then she was right in my ear.
"Wake up, Zach, wake up!"
Please stop haunting my dreams!
"Wake up!"
My eyes opened with a start and my lungs, in a fight or flight instinct, inhaled as much air as they could hold, but immediately released it. My vision was blurry, blanketed with the image of my mother's features. The sound of her voice increased my heart beat, and it was making me feel helpless; even though it was only a dream. It was all a dream, and I knew that, but that didn't make it hurt any less.
I only ever get this dream when I know, deep down, I haven't done something right, like my mother, from beyond the grave, was chastising me for my behavior.
A guilty conscious always serves as a good reason not to get drunk, but I did anyway, and look what it got me.
I only ever get this dream when I've fallen too far down a rabbit hole that led to past depressions; because, you know, depression never really goes away if we honestly think about it.
It just lessens.
Until it's sparked back to life one day your senior year of high school when you're trying to lessen a boy's - who you barely knew in the first place - on coming depression.
Inhaling a few times to stop my heart from escaping my chest, I slowly sat up. That's when I realized I wasn't in my own house, in my own bed. Still breathing slightly hard, I gazed around the familiar room, ignoring the piercing pain in my cranium and the subtle pang of nausea. There was a small closet across the room with white folding doors, and next to it was a desk with an almost finished solar system model of extra detail. My eyes leave it behind to glance at the walls full of NASA propaganda and drawings of planets, meteors, astronauts and models of rockets. Finally, I stare up, my breathing now slow and shallow, to see the greenish white stars contrasting against the white ceiling.
I knew who the room belonged to before I really even realized anything.
I brought my hand up to rub the back of my neck, and sucked my bottom lip under my teeth to bite at my skin: a habit I had stopped before moving to this place, but found that it was coming back. A lot of habits were coming back.
The pounding in my head only grew each second I was coming to my senses, and my stomach rolled uncomfortably inside of me. Although, I didn't focus on those things; only on the Spider-Man blanket sprawled out on the ground I could barely see from my position on Andrew Parsley's bed. Pausing, I let go of my bottom lip and leaned over the edge of the bed. Below, lazily clutching his pillow to his head, laid Andrew. I blinked a couple of times, somehow not believing what I was seeing.
Lowering my head to rest against the bed, I laid my eyes on Andrew's face as he peacefully slept on the ground of his room.
I've heard people say you look different when you sleep. Softer, more peaceful, younger even.
This seemed true as I watched Andrew sleep.
His face was anger free, somehow rare when around me, though you'd think that wouldn't be the case since we were friends now. As I've said before, I'm good at making people mad. But when Andrew was sleeping, his face was soft around his sharp edges, and his usually kept hair was messy and fluffy looking, some strands covering his eyes.
Moving my eyes down, I saw that he still had on what looked to be his Halloween costume. Smiling to myself, I moved my eyes back up to his face. There, I kept my eyes just a little too long on his feminine lips.
In my mind in that moment, I probably could have written tragedies about his lips. I could have fixed problems with his lips. I could have cured anybody's problems. And in that moment, staring down at his slightly opened mouth, at the different shades of pink hues shaping the Hills of his lips, I found that I liked Andrew just a little too much.
And that was a big no.
A huge no.
Probably the biggest "off-limits" sign hung above these feelings I had for Andrew, and that made me hate myself.
It made my depression grow from the seed I thought I had buried in desert lands.
But, that didn't stop me from hesitantly bringing a hand over the edge of the bed and slowly towards Andrew's lips. My hand was reluctant, and I was really thinking about whether what I was about to do was okay, or if I should have stopped. I should have stopped right then and there; I should have just gotten up. I should have left as soon as I had woken up; but I didn't. I tentatively brought my hand down closer until it was hovering over Andrew's lips. My index finger could feel the warm puffs of breath leaving his lungs, and it lit my whole being up with tingles.
Then, taking the last stretch, I lightly grazed my finger tips over Andrew's uniquely shaped lips of his face. They were soft, slightly ridged in some places where he had probably bitten too hard on them. When I was feeling slightly braver, I applied more pressure to my touch and taped my thumb to his bottom lip. The action felt familiar, but it was all new to me in that very instance.
Shakily sighing, I slid my light touch slower than before up the contour of his cheek bone and over his right eye to swipe the tendrils of hair covering his forehead away. My thumb skidded over his brow, smoothing it out, and then went back to his lips.
Maybe I was slightly obsessed with Andrew's lips. Maybe just a little bit.
Biting down on my bottom lip again, I found my courage once more and, with slight movements, I straightened my fingers out over Andrew's cheek, resting my palm against his jaw and thumb the corners of his lips.
It was good Andrew seemed to be a heavy sleeper.
Rubbing my thumb gently over Andrew's skin, I held my breath like I held my crumbling mind together.
If Andrew was awake, I wouldn't have done what I did. If he was awake, he would have probably socked me in my eye. Hell, that's what I would do to me.
But he wasn't, and I was a coward for doing this, for being relieved he couldn't see me being so... unbecoming.
Shutting my eyes tightly, I shook my head and abruptly - faster than I could throw a football - lifted my hand away from Andrew's face.
But, you know, the funniest little thing happened.
Andrew, being the better quarterback of us two, shot his hand up faster than I could retreat it. He caught it just as I was letting him go, and my heart went down just as my hand did, and into the pit of my stomach. With wide eyes and no breath, I stared down at the groggy boy as he pulled my hand back to the place it was before. His other hand wrapped itself around my wrist as he twisted his fingers over mine to keep my hand planted against his face.
"An- uh- Andrew. . ."
The boy below, with glossy eyes barely in view behind his long lashes, hummed, running his own thumb in circles across my wrist. His lips, now under my fingers, puckered and left a airy kiss against my finger prints.
In a maddening sort of way, my face flushed and I tried pulling my hand away. To no avail, it only fueled the sleepy boy's own strength, and before I knew it, I was being pulled from the bed. I hit the floor with a painful thud, but that wasn't all. The hand that was in the grip of the beast's slammed against the corner of his wooden side table, making me hiss in searing pain; and suddenly, my other hand was getting pinned on the other side of my head as Andrew Parsley magically appeared over me. His legs were on either side of my hips, straddling me, and his hands held me against the ground so that I couldn't even try to escape. My legs went into spasmodic mode, trying to kick and slide out from under the ex-quarterback. I grappled with freeing myself from this compromising position, tiring myself out more than I already was. But the cherry that topped this honest cluster fuck was Andrew's snarling face inches from my own face - which probably looked all the bits of both confused and frightened.
"Gotcha," he whispered lowly, angrily.
This Andrew was different from the Andrew literally a few seconds ago.
My breathing was now back to heavy intakes of oxygen, and I was struggling with Andrew putting all of his weight on my lower abdomen. His once light face was washed in black. In his glass-like eyes I could see my trembling reflection, my agape mouth and bobbing Adam's apple.
"You see," Andrew started talking again, well more like snappily whispering, "last night, I learned that you seem to like running away whenever you do shit like you were just doing." I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion and stilled; that's when it hit me: I had no idea why I was at Andrew's and I don't remember how, when, who, what, barely anything.
He was probably referring to something that happened last night and was trying to get me to talk about it.
I had little snippets here and there, so that would probably be hard to do.
There was getting to the party with Taylor.
I met Corbett's cousin... Tyler or Todd or something.
Then there was the drinking, the heavy drinking.
And I played spin-the-bottle, but all I remember is the start.
I don't remember finishing it.
Although, moments after when I'm stumbling out onto the front porch come to mind, yet they're blurry pictures a man with Parkinson's could have taken with his wind-up, disposable camera.
All the memories flying in my mind trying to help me remember what Andrew Parsley was trying to iterate was causing my headache to quadruple in pain.
Andrew rolled his eyes and hardened his features, only for a minute, before staring down at me long enough that he could see how utterly clueless I was. "Don't tell me you have no idea what I'm saying. Did you seriously forget?"
I tried replying, "I -" but I couldn't because I had gotten so drunk the night before that I probably now knew what Andrew felt like those first few weeks of our so called friendship.
This was a weird friendship we had going on if I had to be honest with myself; and to think, it has only been going on for like seven weeks!
The less groggy boy above me sighed heavily, and with a push against my wrists, he let go of my arms and sat back against my thighs. I immediately took to rubbing at the wrist that hit the side-table. Andrew noticed and frowned.
"Sorry."
I drew my eyes into slits to give Andrew an even more confused look. "Okay, honestly, what is all this about? Seriously? Did I do something stupid last night?"
Andrew, again, out of nowhere, leaned forward, slamming his hand near my head to move closer to me. I've noticed this, now, that Andrew had started getting bolder around me. What he was doing was definitely bold.
"I don't know if I want to tell you." His sleep-deprived eyes stared into my plain brown eyes, then swiveled down for half a second before slithering back up slower than when they went down. "But I didn't really sleep good last night because of it."
My heart skipped a beat in a desperate attempt to keep up with my brain, and trying to maintain some composure, some dignity and a shred of my image that I've allowed Andrew to see, I did the only coping mechanism I had found was better than wanting to kill myself out of the littlest things. I started joking.
"You know, heh, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me, Parsley, with the way you're-you're, uh, you're straddling me there, kid."
The kid grimaced, and in a humorous tone, said, "You wish." I nervously laughed, hoping he wasn't keen enough to sense my uncomfortable self being truly awkward for probably the first time in a while. And then, with a lick of his lips and tired groan, Andrew pushed himself up off of and away from me to sit on his bed. I inhaled sharply at the movement, feeling the way he accidentally rubbed and brushed against my groin. His actions made my bite down, hard, and quickly roll away.
On the inside I was freaking out, but on the outside, I chuckled. "Man, Andy, you practically carved out my morning wood."
Andrew grimaced for the second time, chunking a nearby pillow at my head as he barked out a comeback, "I wouldn't have noticed, it's so small." He laughed at his own joke when I made a face back at him.
This was the Andrew I had come to like. The Andrew only I knew. The Andrew that suddenly didn't mind my odd jokes. The Andrew that I had the pleasure of bringing out of that shell of his.
But he would never know I liked him.
It was an impossible thing to think about, but with being in his presence, it was at the forefront of my mind. It would always be there, probably, for the rest of my life that I spent around him being his friend.
"Hey." Andrew spoke again after our short silence. I turned to him from my position on the ground to stare up at his face. It was painted in shadows from the rising sun's light coming through from the blinds; but he looked solemn.
"What?"
He hesitated, glancing away as he wrung his fingers in and out of each other, before looking back at me to say something that almost killed me. "What would you do if I, say... kissed you right here, right now." I sat up so fast, my knees  and elbows popped as I came to my feet and stood there, in front of him, with my back hunched forward and face devoid of emotion.
"W-what?"
Andrew stood up, too, and took large strides towards me. With each step he took, I took one back, before I hit his door.
"What would," he brought his hands up to cage me to his door, "you do," his legs pushed up against mine, trapping me against it, "if I" he angled his face slightly up so his lips were inches from mine, "kissed you." I could once again feel his breath, but this time against my lips. "Right here, right now?"
This is a joke. It has to be!
I glared down at Andrew, into his eyes, then at his lips - they were so close - and back at his eyes. It was a constant struggle to choose where to look, but I finally settled on his eyes. "That's gay, Andrew," and I shoved him off of me.
He stumbled back, nodding. "Exactly."
We stood our spaces away from each other, under this sudden static. He was clenching his jaw, and I was clenching my fists.
This is a test. This is a sick joke.
It has to be!
I was the first to look away, thinking about what has happened in the past few minutes.
I was here because of what happened at that stupid party.
Andrew is acting like this because of what happened at that stupid party.
My hands clenched even harder that I'm sure my knuckles were turning white.
What would I do?
I turned my head to look back at Andrew to see him still looking at me, he himself thinking what looked like a mile a minute. He was looking at me like he was looking at a five thousand piece puzzle, or maybe a freak, but his stare was fiery. It made me lean further against the door more so than I already was.
I didn't know what was happening.
All I knew was that my impulsive side was making a comeback. It was peeking through the loads of self-taught filters I had put over myself and trying to break free, but this part of me, the part I had made of myself, was chaining it bit by bit back to its jail cell in the dungeon of my past self that lied within my soul.
But it grew, and grew until it was moving my legs forward to meet Andrew where I had casted him away. His eyes enlarged, not expecting me to do such a thing, but they were soon closing as I connected our lips together.
I pulled Andrew flush against my own body, leaning over him to get a good angle, and I wrapped the past enemy into an embraced kiss. He enclosed his hands around the pads of my shoulders, running his fingers over my thin shirt. Our lips smacked against each other, trying to see who could get the upper hand on the other, and we were so close that our faces were pressed together almost uncomfortably.
This kiss was full of lust and questions, but that didn't stop either of us. It only pulled us along.
Andrew, now sucking on my bottom lip - in a much better way than I ever could - pulled away, pulling my lip with his by accident. It illicited a soft moan and gasp for air, making my ears heat up; and it made Andrew chuckle to himself, as he fully disconnected our lips to rip my shirt off my me. I did the same to him, following his exact moves, but while I towed us to his bed.
When I got his shirt fully off, I threw it to the side and hurriedly laid Andrew down against his bed, reattaching my lips as soon as I could. By now, the jeans I had slept in were tight, and not from just morning wood, and I could feel Andrew beneath me with the same predicament.
The feeling of our skin touching each other's wasn't helping in the slightest. If anything, it made me want him more.
From beneath me, Andrew was quivering and letting his hands travel the coarse of my body. I kept my hands against his collarbone, pressing him further into his bed with strength I was sure was hurting him. But I didn't care.
He started this.
Inhaling the faint smell of his perspiring skin, I softly licked at his lips. He opened his mouth wider and soon we were battling each other like the naive warriors unknowing of the war they were about to fight.
What made every thing stop, though, so fast, was when I felt Andrew's hands dip a little too far down, shaking with anxiety and arousal, and the moan of desperation, of my name, that left his mouth between hard kisses. "Zachary. . ."
I forced our lips apart from each other to look down at the red faced boy. Our chests were heaving up and down in sync, sometimes hitting each other, but other than that, we were stock still.
Then reality came crashing down, and I forced us even further apart, so far apart that I was back at the door.
"No. No. That wasn't supposed to happen. I don't kiss my friends like that. I don't - I can't -"
"Funny," Andrew was getting up from his bed, and from here, I could see his bulge through his own pants, "that's the exact opposite of what you said last night." My eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
"No. I didn't. I couldn't have. I can't kiss guys. I can't like guys. I don't."
I thought I had gotten rid of that side of me when my dad and I moved here. I thought it was gone for good, but obviously my daily turmoil and the kiss I shared, apparently twice now, or God knows how many times since last night with Andrew said otherwise.
"I -"
I tried speaking, but like before, nothing would come out. Nothing could come out, I was in shock. I probably shouldn't have been because time and time again I had thought about Andrew in an almost romantic way... but it wasn't that.
It was my past taking me over that was so shocking.
"I'm - I'm sorry. . .!" I apologized, for everything, before I walked out, well ran out of Andrew Parsley's house.
I just needed to think, to get my thoughts together, alone.
I needed to straighten out my priorities before I moved further because I didn't want to lose Andrew.
I've never wanted to lose him.
But I needed to sort out my mind, and obviously being around Andrew at the moment wasn't going to help.
I just needed a breather.
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Ieeessshhhh that made me blush!!! I love them so much.
This one isnt too bad. I like it tbh and hey, another kiss. Tbh I wasn't expecting this one, but it's expected if I'm being truthful. This kiss I think plays a vital role, since they are both sober now, in the development of their relationship.
We'll see which direction Zachary decides to go.
But as always, not revised, sorry guys, really, but I'm lazy. And I always seem to miss some things when I do try to revise it.
But anyhow, thoughts, expectations, disappointments? You can tell me here!
And, questions?
And as per the tradition:
What do you think was running through Andrew's head throughout this whole chapter?
What do you think will happen next chapter when we get back to Andrew's POV?
What is this past Zach keeps talking about? I think I need to shed some light onto that soon.
And finally, what are your thoughts on the end of this chapter?
Man, honestly, what a day.
And as I said last chapter, I'll explain Terrance. I was gonna do this at the end of the book but I couldn't wait.
Terrance Holloway just made a pre-cameo. He is one of the main characters of a new book I'm gonna write.
Which will be ten times better than this one. But I hope you lovelies stick around for it in the future!
I hope you enjoyed, though. Till next time! ~