Straight Boys - Chapter 40: Chapter 40

Andrew's POV
It was weird in some ways, that Zachary Rogers was right there. He was there in that hospital room with me, with my mom, and he was seemingly not going to leave.
He made it seem like he was going to stay with me in that room forever if he could until my mom would wake up.
His heavy hand was comforting as he rested it in my messy hair. I would say it felt like that time Mandy Grace had her hands in my hair after we had hooked up and she was still in her blazer-chill phase, but it didn't actually.
It didnt feel like a girl was with me like my past self would have liked.
It felt like Zachary fucking Rogers was there.
It was weird because I had actually gotten used to his confusing push-and-pull attitude he had been selling throughout our whole developing friendship; so now that he was there for me, now that he seemed like he wasn't going anywhere, I was feeling things - foreign things - that no girl could ever make me feel.
Not Gretchen.
Not Mandy Grace.
And definitely not Mandy Hartfield, no matter how princess-y she was to me, no matter how much she could make a boy fall in love with her because of the way she was.
Because I think I was falling in love with Zachary Rogers instead. It came out of nowhere, really, like a freight train to the face, but it wasn't so startling. It seemed almost as expected - like I was supposed to fall for someone like him. It felt right to like him - to like a boy - because it made me feel true. I felt more like me when I was with Zachary and when I was realizing my feelings.
And so as I sat in that hospital room in a silently crying mess, trying not to crack anymore than the House of Usher had, and as Zach held me up with his gripping hand, I came to the conclusion that maybe I had always been gay.
Maybe I somehow knew I was gay, but I just didn't want to acknowledge it, so I drowned myself in the aesthetics of the female anatomy and this illusion that I liked them because I had to.
I know it was such a bad time to be thinking about my sexuality while in the presence of my comatose mother, but it was a good distraction. I couldn't stand it anymore. I just wanted to figure out one thing in my life - make one thing make sense and make it right - because God knows nothing was going anyway but the wrong way. I needed to fix at least one thing.
And it was the only thing that I had control over anymore. I couldn't control anything other than myself.
So, when I decided that it was time to go, I stood up and pulled along the only thing in my life that made sense - no matter how weird it was - and left the hospital. I grabbed Zachary by his wrist after he had dropped his hand from my head, and I took him away from the one thing I was too afraid to be around anymore.
Too afraid because it was the catalyste for all my regrets, my depression, and my own self-loathing hatred.
And I took Zachary out of the room, past the desk where that nurse from before sat watching us, down the front steps of the hospital and into the city. All the while he let me drag him. Zachary said nothing as I took him with me away from the hospital.
I needed a break.
Zachary Rogers was the only person I wanted to be with where no one else, nothing else could bother us, bother me; because I needed a break. I wanted to just sit and do nothing and be with Zachary fucking Rogers.
Because fuck I loved him so much and I was just now only realizing it.
I had never loved anyone like I loved Zach. A boy.
I just wanted to sit with him and figure everything out, try to make things better; because he was the only person in my life that actually wanted to do that with me - for me. From the moment he started changing his attitude towards me, he seemed to want to try to help me - even when I wouldn't let him, didn't want him to, he was always just there, popping in and out of my life like a fly that wouldn't leave me alone.
If you would have told me a few months ago that I would fall in love with a fucking fly like Zachary Rogers, you would have eaten a hardy helping my fists.
"Are taking me to a back alley to have your way with me, Andy, or are you just going to murder me right here, right now?" The joking voice of the fly behind me made me release my grip from his wrist and make my way back into real time and asay from thought time.
I pursed my lips to suppress my laugh and gave him my best mocking glare. "Which would you prefer, you kinky shit?" He laughed and I let myself smile even though I kept going back and forth between all the shit I still needed to get done, to say, to clean up.
I ran my fingers through the tangles in my hair, trying to run my negative thoughts off. I took my eyes and steadied them on Zachary's smiling face and tried to steady my breaking mind because that's what I was supposed to be doing.
I was supposed to be distracting myself.
Suddenly, when I glanced at my surroundings, I realized where we were. "Hey. Do you wanna get ice cream?" Zachery silenced his laughter, but kept his smile wide through his reply. "In this weather?" A rolling sense of deja vu hit me, causing me to smile.
True it was November, but ice cream was a good distraction, right?
Even though it was cold, I took Zachary to the ice cream shop we had been to before. It was good to go, anyway, because I knew Annie O'Phanny's schedule like I knew my own schedule for school. I knew she would be there, and i needed her obliviousness like I needed Zachary's carefullness.
Fro-Cone was empty - I mean it was almost dark outside on a Sunday evening - as he and I walked into the parlor. The only soul to be seen was Annie as she sat behind the counter texting someone on her phone. When we walked in and the bell dingle-linged, she looked up and her face lit up like the open sign out front.
"Andrew!" Her eyes glanced down after seeing us, no doubt looking at my hand latched onto the forearm of Zachary in an almost life-line-like grip. Her smile widened.
"Hiya, Annie O'Phanny." My smile was warm, still so plastic in her presence because of her obliviousness, and I dropped the arm I was holding to cross my arms like I was about to lazily joke around with the girl I can almost call a girlfriend at this point in our relationship.
Annie crinkled her nose and looked away from me at Zachary, "And howdy, Zachary," she said to him in that mocking tone of hers she got when she was about to start messing with people.
Zach smiled back, but like last time, his body was speaking a completely different language. "Hi, Annie."
I narrowed my eyes at him, but like last time I said nothing.
Did he not like Annie?
Or did he not like me with Annie?
I quickly looked away from Zach because of my sudden conclusion.
Is Zachary Rogers fucking jealous?
Something in me twitched at the thought of Zachary being jealous because I was being friendly with a girl friend of mine. But then another part of me hit the brakes on my own assumptions.
Zachary can't fucking get jealous. I have never seen him jealous ever; even with his pretty girlfriend.
And then I was avoiding Zachary and the thought of him in any way because - whoops - I remembered he had a girlfriend and the type of indecisive personality that would most definitely leave me hanging by a thread trying to climb back to him if he ever so chose to go back to her.
I felt my eyebrows kneading together, but I brushed all those thoughts aside and focused on Annie O'Phanny instead. I was supposed to be distracting myself from my mom, but I had ended up distracting myself with more shit that I needed to not think about and distract myself from even more.
I'm a fucking mess.
"So the usual?" I hadn't been paying attention, which was probably a bad idea, so I didn't notice the long pause I was holding until Annie had piped in from behind the ice cream case. I breathed a laugh and nodded.
"How 'bout you, punk?"
Zachary shook his head at Annie, again like last time turning down ice cream. Annie snorted and raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at Zachary as she made my cone, but said nothing. She looked like she was suppressing a joke behind her crooked teeth that she wanted to say, but she was biting her tongue.
When she handed me my ice cream I paid her, and Zachary and I went and sat at the same booth as we did last time. This time, however, Annie did not follow. From where I sat, it looked like she was preoccupied with something else, something on her mind, as she sat back down behind the counter, her eyes staring out the windows at the front of the shop.
I shrugged off her quiet behavior, which was unusual for her, and paid more attention to the boy sitting across from me. "So. . ." I licked my ice cream to fill the empty movement I felt and waited to Zachary to say something.
"You know," he leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table as his lips shaped into a smirk and he got his usual spark in his eyes, "I'm really starting to think that you're really invested in the whole "dating" thing for sure now." Of course he would start with a fucking joke.
Maybe that's what you like most about him.
I blinked, pressed my lips into a line, and just went along with it. It was as good a distraction as any. "Or you're the one who wants this to be a date," and maybe I liked it just a little bit because it was an excuse to flirt, to test these new waters I was swimming under.
And maybe I wanted to exact my revenge for last time because the pure satisfaction I got from seeing Zachary's face made my bust out laughing. His whole face was turning red and he looked so tense, like he was as uncomfortable as I was last time. It was fucking hilarious, and it was exactly what I needed.
I needed this.
I needed him.
"Yes."
As my laughter was dying out and my mind was coming back to its senses to notice my ice cream melting, and as I licked away at the buttermilk flavored goodness dripping down my hand, I felt my heart stuttering. "W-What?" I slowly, distractedly took another lick out of my ice cream after I had actually registered what Zachary was saying to me.
He was still red faced, still uncomfortable looking like a scared little kid, but he was intensely staring at me with dark eyes and twitching fingers. "I said yes. . . I do want this to be a date. And I wanted last time to be a date, too, so freaking much." It was dark outside, there was hardly anyone around, but I felt like my cheeks were brighter than a fire hydrant and a crowd of people were walking down the streets in my intestines.
Did Zachary Rogers really want this to be a date or was he messing with me?
Did Zachary Rogers just say that he's been wanting us to go on a date for so long?
I've never put much thought into it, but looking back on it now, remembering the way he acted and how he reacted when I said it wasn't a date so vehemently, I suddenly started putting some of the puzzle pieces into place. Was I always so blind? Maybe. But now I was starting to see the real - the really real, and not the superfluous, immature Zachary Rogers he always made himself out to be - Zachary Rogers. I wasn't so blind anymore. I was learning how to read people more and more, and I felt like Zachary was as thick as the bible and I was only two hundred and fifty pages in at that moment.
"So," the boy in front of me who was pink in the cheeks and heavy in the eyes rested his back against the blue leather of the booth and rubbed the back of his neck like he did when he was definitely nervous and said, "can this be a date, Andrew Parsley?"
The bell at the door dinged and someone walked into the almost silent parlor - save for the faint music playing in the background - and my eyes naturally looked away - mostly to not seem so affected by that boy, and partly because I was feeling like guns were shooting me in my head and bombs were detonating in my abdomen and I need yet another distraction to keep me from spilling all my guts out in that moment.
I immediately regretted it as soon as I saw who came barreling through the entrance and swiftly striding up to Annie.
Corbett Connors.
I involuntarily ducked low into the table, abandoning my cone on a napkin next to me, and it caused my knees to knock against Zachary's. My change in attitude from out of nowhere made Zachary furrow his brows and follow my eyes to see what could cause me to do such a thing.
Then he was lowering himself below the booth to keep himself hidden from the line of sight of the tiger. Our limbs were tangled and our backs were arched in odd directions like we had broken them, and to say I was feeling alright during all this would have been a lie.
I was fucking terrified.
I came out to keep myself from going insane, yet I was losing my mind all over again because one of my problems had just come waltzing through the door to the one place nobody knew about my accident and started talking to one of my friends like he knew her.
Wait.
My eyes squinted at the two people across the shop and my mind started turning the gears inside my head at top speed.
What the fuck.
"What?" Zachary whispered out, continuing a beat later with, "You wondering why the biggest douchebag on the planet is here right now? Yeah, well me too, kid, but you look like you're abou- oh no, Andy, dude! Get back here!" I didn't let Zachary finish his sentence because I shot up from beneath the table - with some difficulty - and was stomping towards Corbett and Annie.
They hadn't noticed me as I crept towards them like a bull. And they didn't notice me when Annie led Corbett to the back of the shop. "What the fuck." I spat out, quickly following after them. From behind me I could hear Zachary calling my name and his footsteps trying to catch up to me, but I didn't listen nor did i wait up for him. I was completely going insane right now, like a switch had flipped right then.
Corbett usually had that affect on me; the ability to make me lose my mind and turn completely 180 degrees in that angry direction.
I didn't care in that moment that he had shit on me. I just wanted to know why the one girl I could actually stand being around even after knowing her for so long and the dickhead I actually hated more than myself, were talking to each other like they themselves were friends.
"Bro, Andrew, stop. Stop! What the hell are you going to achieve by doing this? Andrew. Andrew!" Zachary was blubbering behind me, trying but failing to grab my shoulder and stop me, but I wasn't having any of it. I needed to know why this was happening even if I got nothing from it. I was sure I was going to get a hell of a lot from it, actually.
My eyes were glued to the couple as I followed a few feet behind them. I watched as they slipped through the employee entrance and then I slipped through the entrance, too.
When I was close enough, I started picking up on the conversation they were having, ignoring the one Zachary was trying to have with me.
". . . can't believe it, Corbett. Mr. Bright actually got her for you?"
"Yeah," the bane of my existence sighed, "I can't believe it either. I thought I would never be able to do this ever. It's so. . . surreal, I guess." And then Annie O'Phanny was cheering out in glee and wrapping her thin arms around Corbett Connors. He hugged her back, this look I've never seen before coloring his face almost happy. Annie was exclaiming something in his ear and he was resting his chin on her shoulder, and I was getting more and more confused because this was not possible.
"What the fuck?"
Corbett's eyes shot up at the sound of my voice and Annie released herself from his arms. They both looked towards me as I walked out from my hidden position behind some dumpster.
"Andrew, Jesus Christ, why are doing this? I didn't sign up for this." Beside me, Zachary was complaining.
Annie looked at me, then at Zachary, who was reluctantly following behind me, rolling his sleeves up like he was preparing for something, and then at Connors. Her eyes were widening as the situation started to unfold, but she didn't stop looking at Corbett after that. I inwardly spluttered because how fucking small could this world really be?
I stopped marching up to the two just as I got about three feet away from them. Annie still would not look at me no matter how hard I tried reaching her eyes to try and get some form of an explanation from her. She would only look at that monster of bubbling anger; and she even started to angle herself inwards towards him, almost like she was blocking me out of this whole ordeal. I huffed.
"Annie, look at me! How do you know this guy?" I was trying to keep my anger at bay, but it was very hard. I hadn't seen Corbett Connors in over a week, but my anger was still fresh. My emotions were as potent as they were that day in that corner of the hall. And as I kept calling out to Annie, I'm sure she and the other two could feel that.
So, feeling my hard, confused, frustrated stare on the side of her head, Annie took a deep breath and turned to finally look at me. Her eyes kept glancing between the three of us guys, though, and she slowly started bringing her hand up to hold onto Corbett's red shirt tightly. She knew something about Corbett that had something to do with me, and I just knew it.
"Andrew," she started, "why are you out here, you punk?" I slapped my hands over my face trying miserably not to claw my eyes out in frustration.
"I should be asking you that? Why are you out here with him?! He's not a good guy, Annie. How do you know him?" I threw my hand out to gesture at Corbett, and the force from my anger caused me to take a slight step forward.
Beside Annie, Corbett looked like he was seething, but he wasn't looking at me when I gestured to him or at Annie. He was glaring at Zachary. Zachary was glaring right back at him, and it was like this bolt of angry lightning was crackling between them.
"He's my friend, Andrew, and he's not as bad as you think he is." Annie was calmly, with a cool collectedness about her, explaining it to me. She looked like she was talking down to a kid when she said that, like she was trying not to explode on her son for breaking the lamp again. It made me crinkle my brows in physical pain.
What did she know? She obviously hasn't seen him when he's picking on the other kids. She hasn't seen him when he was lying right through his teeth to get his way. She hasn't seen his aggression, his violent tendencies when they're directed at me. She hasn't, so that's why I said, "What do you know? He's probably only ever shown you his fake self! He's nothing but a big phony, Annie, open your God damn eyes- "
"- No, you open your eyes, Andy! Y'all aren't children anymore! You need to realize that you know nothing about the people around you. Do you even realize that? You know nothing because all you ever see is the things you want to see, and that's almost never the truth about someone." Annie had interrupted my heated argument to bring her own heat to the debate, but not once did she raise her voice. She seemed livid, but she didn't yell or shout. She was calm and collected, nothing like the joking Annie she had always been around me.
But before I could rebuttal, a voice had beat me to the punch. "Stop." It was Corbett. His voice was deep, daunting and deathly. He sounded dead inside. "Just stop it. Both of you."
"Corbett," Annie warned.
"Andrew. . ." Zachary mumbled next to me, almost hesitant because he seemed to know what was about to happen. He obviously didn't like where this was going, as he took a step in front of me like he was going to protect me. I clenched my fist and stepped back in front of him. He didn't need to protect me. I was the one supposed to be protecting him.
He didn't know that Corbett had footage of us kissing at Mandy's party. He was in the dark, and I wanted to keep it that way.
"No. I will not stop it." I licked my lips as I kept going. "I am tired of you," I pointed at Connors, "showing up everywhere I go and acting like you own the world. Newsflash, you don't! And I'm not going to fall for this little act you put up in front of everyone because I know you! You're a freaking coward!"
"I'm a coward? Me? I think the fuck not, Parsley." Connors took a step towards me and we were now a foot apart. Annie used that foot to stand between us, her back to me and her hands holding Corbett back as he made to take another step. She pushed against him, and he pushed back weakly. His face was tightly wound up, his eyes wide with almost a frantic need as he spoke between me and her, his words being directed at Annie at one point, then me the next like he was slowly becoming a beggar. "I can be most anything, but a coward? You want me to show you that I'm not a coward? Annie, get out of the way. I need to show him I'm not a fucking coward. Please. I-I need to do this because he needs to fucking know! Annie, move! I'm not a pussy, Andrew, I'll do it. I'll fucking do it if you really want me to!"
Suddenly, it was like Corbett was talking about two completely different things. I didn't know about what he was referring to in the beginning, but then I instantly knew what he was talking about when he uttered the last words to his rant.
"What is he talking about, Andrew?" The confusion Zachary felt again made me angry at the thought of him finding out.
"Don't you fucking dare, you asshole. Do it and I'll have your fucking head in a second!" I seethed, screwing my face up in anger.
Corbett broke himself free of Annie's hold when I said that, but he didn't came after me or Zachary. Instead, he whipped around and kicked a stray trashcan. He aggressively groaned, like he was really trying hard not to blow his top, and made to punch the brick wall of the neighboring building.
"Corbett!" Annie rushed towards him to try and catch his fist, but she wasn't fast enough. His knuckles connected with the rock hard walk and the sound of his bones breaking echoed down the alleyway. Zachary and I both visibly cringed at the sound, but what really actually made me start feeling pity for Corbett Connors was when, after a pause, he threw his other fist into the wall like he was trying to achieve something.
There wasn't a crack this time, but he yelled out in satisfied pain. "Corbett!" Annie called again, wrapping her hands around Corbett to keep him from doing anything else so stupid.
I only found that I could nod at what was happening around me. "See," I also found the only words that I could think of to say after what had happened were, "he's fucked up, Annie," but I suppose they were the wrong words to say because Annie had whipped around to look at me so fast, I swear she could have broken her neck.
"And you aren't? I'm not? Zachary isn't fucked up, either? Please, tell me how Corbett is the only fucked up person here right now? Please. Enlighten me. Tell me why you think this makes him fucked up? To be honest, judging someone you don't really know, you don't really understand the situation they're in or have been through, is fucked up."
I blinked at her, at a loss for words completely now, as Zachary dryly chuckled next to me and Corbett undecidedly clutched one of his hands to his chest in pain.
Zachary chuckled again, this time to himself, then finally started giving his input. "You're right. But the problem I see with this is that you think other people are the one's to blame for everything. Don't you think that the person is also partly to blame? Because what I've gathered from all of this is that, yeah sure, other people judge someone they don't really know, but how else are they gonna come to a sound conclusion about someone? It's really also the person's fault because they choose not to help those people understand. They are the ones who let people judge them. The trick is whether they believe the people's judgement over their own because that's really what it comes down to. Realizing that this - what you're saying - doesn't matter unless we allow each other to understand. So please, help us understand. No, hello me understand because I have no clue what the heck any of you weirdos are even talking about."
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Yay I'm done. Its a big boi chapter... just a little bit. Some deep stuff I guess. I hope it makes you think because it makes me think sometimes.
So yeah. Hoped you liked this "early" update... lmfaoo I'm such a bad author I call three weeks or some shit early. Whoops. But hey, new aesthetic.
Anyway most of the chapter isnt edited. Some of it is maybe but not the majority of it. I just wanted to post it because I've some sort of inspiration recently if the cover change hasn't alerted you to it.
But yeah LIKE and COMMENT because that would make me really happy. I've lost a few readers (I mean that's okay. Whatever. I'm not crying or anything) so please do so.
And as always QUESTIONS
Do you think Corbett is really going to show everyone the video?
Did you expect Andrew to say he loves Zachary, even though he didn't actually say it physically to Zachary?
Thoughts on Taylor in future chapters and her relationship with Zach?
Why do you think Corbett came to Annie in the first place?
Do you want the next chapter in Corbett's POV or Andrew's still for the rest of this little part?
As I've sadly come to realize, I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel like my distinction between POVs is not very wide, but oh well. All guys are the same. Jk. Jk. You boys are all unique. ;)