Jumped

Matt and Fyn had been making my week a complete nightmare so far. Neither one would speak to me whilst the other was there, so I spent my lunchtimes drifting between the two of them. Only Callum seemed to sense that this constant wondering was making me unhappy. He phoned me later on that evening to talk to me about it.

“Hey, Callum.”
“Hey, Andy. How are you holding up?”
“I can’t keep up this constant switching between friends!”

He sighed. “Hang out with Matt at school. We’ll talk afterwards.”

“But, what about you guys?”
“Fyn’s got me. Don’t worry, he doesn’t want this to be difficult for you.”

And so, we worked out a time table in our heads. School time with Matt, evening’s with Callum and Fyn.

Of course, factoring in this constant switching, my consistent crush on my best friend (which took up a lot of my thinking space) my band practises and the general every day activities of a sixteen year old boy, things like homework and school got pushed down to the bottom of my list of things to do. Soon I was behind in almost all, if not every one of my classes.

It got so bad that the school ended up phoning home. “Mom, dad; I’m going out!” I hollered that evening.

“Andrew! Could you come in here, please?” my mom called and I gulped; it was never a good sign when one of them called me “Andrew”. Going into the living room, I saw them standing at either end of the couch. I slowly took a seat without being asked, as both of them loomed above me.

“...Am I in trouble?” I asked after a minute of complete silence.

“The school just phoned,” my dad said and I swallowed. “They said that you’re falling behind in your lessons; failing.”
I looked at my Converse clad feet, nibbling my bottom lip.

“Andy,” my mom sighed. She sat down next to me, fiddling with a loose curl. “You know that we don’t care about your school work. If you get a C by the end of this year, you know we wouldn’t care. Hell, I wouldn’t mind if you failed every class if it was because you were generally struggling. But you’re not behind because you can’t do the work; you’re behind because you can’t be asked to do the work.”

I continued to stare at my shoes. “Andy; is there a reason why you haven’t been doing your school work?” my dad asked. I shrugged.

“Is someone...picking on you? Are you being bullied?” my mom chided.

“No, mom, I’m fine!” I snapped, getting to my feet. “I’ll be back by eleven, I’m going out.”

6969696969

I went to see Callum and Fyn that evening, but left an hour early. I came home, apologised to my parents, and spent a whole four hours in my room studying. That takes dedication. After that, I’d worked on some lyrics for two hours, had a shower and then crawled into bed at four, only to get up at half six.

All my studying had gone to waste, considering how I was falling asleep every five minutes in class. I was awoken at lunch by somebody smacking their hand down on the table.

I sat up to see Matt frowning at me. “What?” I whined.

“You’ve been falling asleep all morning and your eyes are all blurry and red.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you hung over?”

“No...?” I muttered, resting my head on the desk again.

“Are you sure, because I will find out.”
“I’m not hung over!” I insisted. Matt snorted and I couldn’t find the energy to respond.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, when I felt someone sit down next to me. I heard Matt huff under his breath and suddenly someone’s hand was petting my hair from my eyes.

“Hey, Andy…” Callum’s voice murmured and I whined, moving over to give him a cuddle. Since Callum had found out about me being gay, we’d developed a weird cuddly connection together.

“How are you feeling?”
“Tired…”
“Aaw,” he cooed, and Matt muttered something under his breath. “Hi, Matt,” Callum said coldly.

“Callum,” Matt replied curtly and I sighed. I was worried that Callum would say something back but he just turned to me.

“So, Andy, there’s this big party up at our friends house this Saturday. Wanna go?”

I frowned. “Which friend?”
“Our friend Shawn; come on, please?” he begged and I opened my mouth.

“Hold on!” Matt said suddenly, “We were gonna hang out this Saturday!”

He glared at me, and Callum looked at me with puppy eyes. I sighed. “Sorry, Callum, I’m double booked.”

Callum chewed on his lower lip. “Matt can come to!” he said quickly. I frowned.

“I don’t think-”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll come!” Matt said suddenly.

I raised an eyebrow. “Matt, I really don’t think-”

“Great!” Callum said, but his eyes were dead. He looked over at me, and he seemed to cheer up a little. “I’ll come and pick you up at seven.”
He stood up and ruffled my hair, before walking away. Matt glared after him. Then he turned to me, his expression hurt.

“You act different around him...” he murmured.

“What do you mean? Of course I do, he’s not-”
“Why do you let him hug you like that?” Matt demanded suddenly, “And talk to you like that?”
“Like what?”

“Like you’re best friends!” he snapped.

“Stop being so possessive,” I said. “You’re my best friend, Matty, you know you are. You always will be.”

“Well, I won’t interrupt you and him anymore,” Matt said and he got to his feet, stalking away. I paused, staring at my plate. What the hell did I do?

6969696969

Matt stayed in a stressy mood with me for the whole week. It hurt so much, but I tried not to let it get to me. But it still hurt. At this point, I turned to the only other person I could think of for guidance...my bands bassist, Ashley Purdy.

One day after school, I made my way into the tattoo parlour where he worked. I wasn’t technically allowed in there, but I looked at least eighteen, and everyone at the parlour knew me as Ashley’s friend.

One of his colleagues, Maggie, was sitting behind the counter, smacking her gum. She had short spiky luminous pink hair...in all honestly, she terrified me. A smile graced her lips when she saw me.
“Hey, Andy,” she grinned, “How’s it going?”

“Is Ash here?” I asked bluntly.

“He’s in the back. Says you guys have some gigs coming up soon...In bars. Aren’t you a little too young for that type of thing?”

“Aren’t you a little too old for that low cut shirt?” I replied tartly and she smirked.

“I’ll tell him your here.” She walked away, and I heard her calling for Ashley. “You can go right on through,” she said when she came back and I nodded gratefully, scurrying through.

I pulled back the curtain, to see a fat bald burly man sitting on a chair. “Ashley?”

“Hey, Andy,” the man’s back seemed to say, and seconds later, the black hair of my bassist appeared.

“Hey…”
“What’s up?”
“School troubles…”

“Matt problems?” he asked, raising his eyebrow knowingly and I kicked myself for coming to him yet again.

“How did you know?” I asked, before taking a seat on a chair in the corner, as Ashley went back to his work. The man winced as he pressed the needle into the flesh of his back and I found myself smiling behind my hand.

“When is it ever anything else?” Ashley set the needles and ink aside. He glanced over at the man. “We’ll take a break if you want.” The man nodded and shifted away, going over to the full length mirror and examining his tattoo so far.

Ashley came over and took a seat next to me. “So what’s up?”

I sighed. “There’s something wrong with Matt…he hasn’t been himself all week. And he got really mad at me the other day and left me. Also…” I glanced around to make sure that no one was listening, “…He’s bi…”

Ashley grinned. “I knew it!”

“How did you know?” I demanded and he shrugged.

“There was always something…different about him.”
“Well…what should I do?” I asked hopelessly and he shrugged.

“Just carry on like normal, I guess.”

“But-”
“But what?” he asked, as the man sat back down and Ashley picked up his needle to continue the tattoo.

“…Nothing,” I said, turning away.

“Are you gonna hang out here?” he asked as I made my way to the door.

“No,” I shrugged, “I think I’ll just go home.”

6969696969

That Friday night, I was going through my wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear for the party tomorrow, when my mom called up the stairs.

“Andy…! Matt’s on the phone!” she hollered. I frowned. Why would Matt be calling here? He’d been ignoring me all week after all. I padded down the landing and stairs in my Superman socks, shaking my hair out of my face as I went.

My mom was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “He’s here now, Matt,” she said, before passing the phone over to me. I immediately turned around and went back upstairs to my room, opening the door and shutting it quietly behind me. It was only then that I lifted my phone to my ear.

“Hello?”
“Um...Hey, Andy, I-”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, calling here, after the hell you’ve put me through all week,” I said bluntly, well aware that I sounded like a paranoid mother.

I could almost picture his smirk and I growled when I heard him laughing quietly. “It’s not funny! If you just called so that you could laugh at me, I’ll put the phone down and-”

“No, Andy, no, wait, I’m sorry!” he said and I sighed, falling back onto the bed and rubbing my eyes.

“Why did you call?” I asked softly and it was his turn to sigh.

“Listen, Andy...it’s kind of hard for me to explain...” he began. I stayed silent and he sighed again. “Shit...ok, the reason I got stressy with you was...well...You act differently around Callum than you do too me...”

“...”
“Are you still there?”
“In what way do I act differently?”

“Um, well...you’re always hugging him, every time I see you with him, or he has his arms around you, or-”

“What?” I asked curtly, “You’d want me to hug you every minute of the day?”

“No! No, it’s not that,” he said, “It’s...the way you two hug. Like you’re a...a...”
“A what, Matt...?”
“A couple,” he spat out, and I shuddered at his tone. It came out as sounding dirty, wrong.

“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but...are you?”
“Am I what?”

“With Callum...like that,” he asked slowly.

“No! Matt, if I had a relationship, do you not think I would have mentioned it to you by now?”
“Well, uh...ok, fair enough...” he mumbled, and I could tell he was blushing.

“But if you were in a relationship with him, would you tell me?”
“Yes!” I said firmly, and then I paused. “...Why would it bother you so much if I was?”

There was silence. “Ok, Andy, I’m going to be completely honest with you now...” he began, and I sat up, pressing the phone against my ear.

“Yes?” I whispered.

“Andy, I like-” he started, when suddenly I heard a voice say, “Matt, I need the phone!”

“Mom, I’m talking to Andy-”
“Now!” his mom barked and Matt sighed.

“Sorry, Andy, I have to go...”
“But, what did you wanna tell me?!”
“I’ll see you soon,” he said, “And I’m sorry for being such a douche lately.”

“Matt, wait!” I yelped but it was too late. He slammed my phone onto the mattress beside me, and covered my face with my hands, tears brimming at the corner of my eyes. Why was he teasing me like this? Why could I not just have him? And what had he been about to tell me?