Fickle Reticence

“What did I fucking tell you about procrastinating?” Mikey asks. It's Monday and Frank totally left that Censorship essay hanging without a second thought over the weekend. Now it's due tomorrow, and he has seven words.

“Something along the lines of ‘don’t fucking do it, you fucking dipshit’,” Frank replies.

“Mhm, yes that sounds like me,” Mikey says smiling at the words.

“Would it kill you to turn the music down though? You’re going to get us in trouble, and honestly if we have one more person knock on that door to tell us we need to turn the music down, I’m going to smash your computer with a baseball bat,” Frank yells, trying to cover both of his ears and type at the same time, which is proving to be impossible.

“I’m sorry I’ve gone partially deaf in one ear, this is the only volume I can play it at and still hear,” Mikey answers.

“You lie!” Frank calls.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I’m not turning the music down,” Mikey says, “and you’re not turning it down either because you don’t know the password to my computer.”

“Oh don’t I? Do the words ‘BillyC0rgan’ ring a bell to you? The O is a zero.”

“Fuck!” Mikey shouts and grabs his computer immediately, “did you-”

“Find your porn stash? Yes, I did.”

“Damn it,” Mikey says, and Frank looks over to see him typing away like there’s no tomorrow. The music hasn’t been turned down yet though, and while it is good music, it’s making it hard for Frank to concentrate.

“I’m not turning the volume down. Try guessing that password, shithead,” Mikey says.

“You and your terms of endearment are what keep me breathing,” Frank says with scorn.

“Yeah whatever, dumbass,” Mikey says.

“I’m going to the library,” Frank announces, giving up on being able to do work in these conditions, “and when I come back I’m going to throw something slimy at your head.”

When he thinks about it, it’s not exactly unfair of Mikey to be playing music this loud. After all Frank stuck Mikey’s toothbrush in a glass of water and then set it in the shared freezer for a few hours just last week. The resulting consequence was that Mikey had a water flavored popsicle with a minty flavored stick.

“Tata!” Mikey calls, and Frank takes back his word and instead throws something at Mikey’s head right then and there. It’s not slimy though.

“That’s you’re damn shirt anyway,” Frank says, closing the door swiftly behind him so there’s no time for Mikey to reciprocate.

Frank exits his building and he’s hit by the brisk air. It’s a little too cold to have left without a jacket, but he’s not going to be outside for long, so he decides not to go back and grab it. It’s not a long walk to the library, and he gets their quicker then he usually would, because he’s anxious to arrive somewhere with heat.

Frank walks into the building and lets out an instinctive shiver, but the warmth floods through him pleasantly, and he steps forward to find himself a quiet nook to start working in.

He finds a table near the corner of the library with all the books about psychology that few people ever read. It’s the most secluded part of the room, and that’s why Frank goes here, because it’s quieter.

The library is pretty busy at this time of the day, but there’s no one in this particular section besides Frank, so he has the table to himself. There’s the distinct muttering of people on the other side of some shelves, and the cavernous room makes their voices carry, but it’s not that bad. He wishes it were quieter, but at least it’s better than having The Smiths blare at him in deafening clarity.

He groans and then opens the document, then a window with google. He cracks his knuckles and then starts to actually type, which is not what he wants to be doing right now.

After about ten minutes he notices that he’s been biting his lip so hard that he can feel it beginning to scab, so he lets it go. The urge to bite it is pretty strong though, and he rubs his tongue along the sensitive skin that’s been weathered away. Frank catches his lip ring in his teeth and takes to chewing on that for now instead.

“Mind if I sit here?” A voice says, and Frank doesn’t look up he just waves his hand noncommittally. “Is that a yes or a no?”

Frank shrugs, not entirely on the right planet to give an answer. He honestly doesn’t even register that someone’s talking to him until the table he’s sitting at rattles ever-so-slightly and he barely realizes that the person has sat down.

He can’t afford to waste the time he’d need to even look up and see who it is. Sounded like a girls voice, but it could’ve been a boys. He doesn’t care enough to look.

He’s so wrapped up in his work that it almost comes as a jolt when he finishes. It doesn’t seem real. He’d thought that he’d be writing this essay for years, but now it’s done. He can’t find it in himself to believe that he actually just typed that whole thing, and now it’s done.

He looks up and rejoins the universe with a sudden hit to the face. It’s not unpleasant, he’d just forgotten where he was for a little while. Forgot who he was as well, but it’s all so painfully clear now that his work is done. It’s a remarkable feeling.

Frank checks his watch to see that it’s almost nine, but he got his work done in record time today. He still has like three hours before he’s usually go to bed, and it’s great.

He glances around the room to see that it’s still fairly busy, but there’s a hush over the room so it’s quieter then when he got here. The person who’d sat at the table is on the opposite side, and the other end of the table, but there’s only a few seats so he can make out their image pretty well. The person has their face buried in a book that actually comes from the psychology section which Frank find a little strange. He wasn’t aware that anyone read those, but he assumes that there’s always the fact that there are psychology majors at this school. That’s the purpose of putting the books there. He’d have thought that you would take it back to your dorm and study it there though.

He looks closer at the person to see that it’s a girl. Her black hair is short for a girls, but long enough to hang around the middle of her neck. She’s either wearing fake eyelashes or she could break the record for length. She’s pale, and there’s a bright blue scarf wrapped around her neck, but it’s the fashion kind and not the kind you wear when it’s cold out.

Frank likes the way her nails have been filled in with black permanent marker, even though they’re a little big and masculine.

He doesn’t even notice he’s staring at her until she lifts her head to turn the page and catches a glimpse of him looking. It’s just out of the corner of her eye, but he can tell she’s looking. He can’t really see the lower half of her face quite well, because it’s sheltered in the shadow of the book, but her eyes are inquisitive and the hazel color of her irises is a bright contrast to the whites holding them.

Frank looks away immediately and trains his eyes back on the computer screen to give it a second read through, but he gets distracted a few times, because he can feel the girl looking at him. Frank’s eyes roll comedically across the skin to a point where he isn’t even processing the words he’s just reading them. His brain knows that the words are there and it’s scanning them for him, but not a single one of them is actually being understood. It’s like there’s a firewall in the way of the words, and all he has is the prickly feeling of being stared at.

He looks up to see her plainly eyeing him, and she seems pretty unperturbed by the fact that Frank’s caught her looking. Her lips are a shade too red, and the lipstick looks kind of cheap, but it’s not bad looking. He actually think she’s kind of pretty.

It’s starting to creep him out that they’re holding each other’s eye contact, so Frank looks away, but she doesn’t.

It’s becoming uncomfortable to the point where Frank closes his computer, and then stuffs it in his bag. He gets up and walks away from the table a moment later, but he sees the girl looking at him the whole time until he walks around. She doesn’t twist her head to watch him leave, because it’s apparently too much effort, but she watched him until he was out of her immediate sightline.

Gee doesn’t really care about him, she just likes making people uncomfortable. It’s not something that she ever really aims to do, but it’s fun. She watches the frantic looking boy get up and leave, and her smile twitches when she sees just how short he is. It was hard to tell when he was sitting down, but he can’t be much more than 5’6.

She actually thought he was kind of good looking for a guy who clearly hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a few weeks. He was probably a freshman, he looked about that age, but she also wouldn’t have been surprised if he was younger than that. Maybe a high school kid making use of a bigger library. He was pretty young looking.

Inevitably, Gee does forget about him though, and smiles to herself that now she has a table all to herself. She raises her legs and puts them on the chair corresponding to the one opposite hers. It might have been a subconscious purpose all along to get him to leave, but it might also have just been a happy result. Whatever the intent, he’s gone now, so there’s no one to worry about at the moment.