In Your Shadow

"Andy!" I cried and ducked behind him just as a big red rubber ball flew past my face.

"What?!" he cried and dodged a ball. I grabbed onto him for dear life and moved wherever he did. "Bill, get off of me!"

"Nein! I don't wanna get hit!"

"Well suck it up!" he cried and tried to pull me off of him, but to no avail. When I grab onto someone, there's no prying me off.

"NEIN."

He sighed and continued playing with me attached to him. Lucky, our team won. Otherwise it would have been down to me and Andreas and our gym teacher would have forced me off of him.

When class was over we went inside to the locker room to change. I changed very fast, as usual. But I did think it odd when Andreas came in and took his things into a bathroom stall. Was he self-contious? Why was there reason for him to be? He was a cute kid.

I usually would have verbalized these questions but instead I kept quiet and when he had come out of the stall with his clothes on, I walked with to math.

Tom was already in class talking to two girls, no doubt flirting with them. Andy and I took our seats in the back. He opened his math book and started doodling and I had a sense that he didn't want to talk to me. So instead I stared at Tom and tried to hear what he was saying to the girls.

It's not that I was jealous of my brother. You just have to be lucky when it comes to girls, and I really wasn't. I was the awkward kid that everyone had indifferent feelings about. Sure, I liked some girls, but I was still in that phase where I just liked to look at them and thought they were pretty and smelled good. I didn't want to date anyone.

The teacher walked in and we started class.

I'm not very good at math so I spent the class daydreaming, doodling, dozing off, and trying to get Andy to talk to me. Since we were in the back, the teacher wouldn't hear anyway. But he was the good student type, and he didn't like to get in trouble. Or even be noticed for that matter. A month into school and I still felt like I was the only one that knew who he was. He needed to be less anti-social.

"Why don't you ever pay attention in that class? Maybe you wouldn't stink if you paid attention," Andy said to me as we left the room.

"Because when am I ever going to use math in my life?" I scoffed and opened my locker to dump in my math book.

He shrugged. "Lots of people use math."

"Well, if I'm going to become a rockstar then I have no need for math," I said haughtily.

He giggled. He didn't laugh much, but when he did it was the most adorable thing ever.

There was an awkward silence and I closed my locker door. "You wanna skip free period?" I asked.

"S-skip? But, we'd get in trouble!"

I smiled. "Only if we get caught. As long as we're back for French, no one will catch us."

"But where will we go?" he asked.

I pulled him forcefully by the arm and walked briskly down the hall to the old, unoccupied part of the school before the bell could ring.

The old auditorium was empty and unlocked, so we went in there. I liked it in there. It was old, moldy, and had peeling paint and barely any lights, but there was still a nice stage and cushioned seats. They were planning on demolishing the old part of the school, which had to be at least seventy years old, soon, but they never really got around to it. There was supposedly too much mold and everyone would get sick and stuff like that.

I went up on and laid down on the stage. It was cold and the floor was warped, but I still liked it.

"What are you doing?" Andreas asked, looking apprehensive to sit on the cushioned seats.

"Becoming one with the stage. And don't worry, those seats are fine. They're only like twenty years old."

"A lot can happen in twenty years," he was such a germaphobe.

"Then come sit on the stage with me," I sat up and patted the floor beside me.

He sighed and jumped up. "What if a hall monitor finds us?"

"Please, they don't come over here. Besides, first lunch is going on. They'll all be there making sure no one starts a food fight," I explained and took out my notebook.

I doodled a little stick figure and watched out of the corner of my eye as Andreas looked around the room.

"It's pretty dark in here."

"Yeah, well it's old and they're not going to spend the money on fixing the lights if they're gonna tear this down," I explained and doodled some more.

"And this stage isn't very big. When I lived in Munich the theaters were huge and me and my mom..." he stopped. I didn't sense his hesitation.

"Well this is just an elementary school. It's not like we're capable of putting on huge productions. Sure we have chorus and corny little-kid plays, but when this auditorium was used it was probably just for speakers and crap," I explained and put my notebook down.

I looked at Andreas and he was looking away from me, unmoving.

"Andy?"

He didn't reply.

"Andy, what's wrong?" I asked and touched his shoulder.

"N-nothing," he muttered. He was crying..

I put my arms around him but he pushed me off. "Stop it."

"Do you want to talk?"

He didn't reply so I let him cry for a good five minutes. Andreas turned back around and wiped all the tears off his face with his sleeve.

"What's wrong?" I asked quietly, knowing he wouldn't tell me.

"I really don't want to talk about it," he replied and jumped down off the edge of the stage.

"Okay.."

He headed for the door.

"We still have ten minutes until we have to go back to class."

"I know, I'm going to the bathroom," he said.

I sat there, not wanting to follow him because I knew he wanted his privacy, and then went back into the main hallways, ready for lunch.

Tom was at his locker already. "Where were you?" he asked.

"Old auditorium with Andy," I replied. "Free period is lame."

"I hear ya. Where is he?"

"He went to the bathroom."

"Oh.." he frowned slightly. "Bill, he's really weird."

"I'm really weird, but you don't have a problem with it," I reminded him.

"I don't verbalize my problems with you," he smirked.

I elbowed him in the ribs. "Meanie."

"No seriously, he's really quiet and nerdy. But he kind of looks like he's hiding something."

"He likes his privacy," I wasn't going to tell him about the crying. I didn't like when Tom made fun of my friends.

"But still, I think he's weird. C'mon, let's go to lunch."

I nodded and followed him, thinking about Andy. What really was up with him? And why wouldn't he tell me what was wrong? As far as I knew, I was his only friend.

Why didn't he trust me?