Earth to Me

The next day was a Friday. I had one morning class and then I was done for the day, and if everything had gone the way I anticipated, I would’ve knocked out my weekend homework early so I could have time to laze around over the weekend.

Well, the universe has always sort of had it in for me, so things didn’t go exactly like that. It wasn’t like I was being called upon to save the world again, at least I didn’t think I was, but when Anthony texted me at around noon, my mind immediately started racing.

“come 2 the apartment. need 2 talk to u and u only,” the text simply read, plain as day.

I glanced at the name – yep, it was definitely Anthony. At least when Andy said he needed to speak to me, it sort of made sense…I don’t think I was ever even in a room with Anthony alone. Really, the thought of that chilled me to the bone.

Well, I got in my car and sped to the band’s apartment downtown, playing the directions by ear and somehow managing to make it. I hadn’t been there since the end of summer; if I was right, Put’emup, Put’emup would’ve just returned from their short world tour with a few opening bands, Olli Lolli and This Sky Abundant, the tour that ignited last night’s drama.

I sure didn’t know what Anthony wanted with me. Maybe the text was meant to be cryptic and a bit harsh, and he was just going to say hello or something. I only really knew the guy from afar, and everything I knew, I learned from how he interacted with other people.

If Andy fell in love with him, though, there had to be a friendlier side to him, right?

I asked myself that question right as I knocked on the door to their room.

Seconds later, it opened, and there stood Anthony, a grim look of “I’m Going to Absolutely Murder You” written all over his face.

I jumped back and gulped, wheezing immediately after choking on my own spit.

“I need to talk to you. And I need to talk to Andy too, which is why you’re both here at this moment when nobody else is in this apartment, because there’s a big issue here that is just waiting to be addressed,” he said, snarky yet honest as usual. As he went on, he opened the door to let me in, and then he closed it behind me.

Sure enough, Andy was standing at the bar counter, wiggling his thumbs with a sheepish smile.

My knees were practically knocking into each other from all the nerves. And I don’t swear very often, but I mean it when I say that the only word moving through my head at that moment was, “Shit,” because, well…shit.

I was the reason for this. I caused them to fight, I made them hate each other even more, and because of this, the band was breaking up right at their peak, and they were never gonna make another song together again, and Mick somehow turned into a vicious ball of hatred while Chance mysteriously lost all of his musical talent, and it was all going straight downhill strictly because of me, the sore-thumb moron who can’t take a hint.

Anthony cut off my internal stream of screaming with his sharp speaking voice.

“Now,” he began, “as I was told, last night, Andy had driven to the University of Chicago for the sole purpose of speaking to you, Oshie. Is that right? Because that’s what Andy told me this morning, and it’s just one reason why I’m a tad irritated at the moment.”

“Y-yeah, he talked to me,” I whimpered. Just saying the wrong thing could’ve set off an explosion, I thought.

Anthony stepped closer to me, his hands behind his back. “And, to my understanding, he discussed a few…rather personal matters with you.”

God, the passive-aggression was strong with him that day.

I nodded, my hands clammy.

“Alright. That’s what I needed to know. You’re the only one who knows right now, and although I insisted that we wait a while, Andy,” he growled, shooting a glare over to his new boyfriend, “we can live with this. You’re harmless.”

In turn, for some reason Andy gave me a nasty stinkeye that shook me to the core, but Anthony saw it in action and stopped it immediately.

“Don’t you fucking pin this on Oshie! At least he told the truth, unlike you, since I had to basically force it outta you this morning,” he snipped, leaning on his hip.

Andy jumped a good foot in the air and blushed. Then he mouthed, “Sorry,” over at me; I was still too paralyzed to say anything back at him.

“And there’s an even bigger issue, which is the reason why you talked to him in the first place instead of me, and I just kinda wanna know why you did that,” Anthony said, brushing his long hair back out of his face. “I don’t – it’s not that I don’t like the fact that you went to him about it, it’s just…like, why couldn’t you talk to me first?”

I took that as my cue to move over to the couch pit, where I sat down and tried to be insignificant. The last thing I wanted to do was interfere again, but I didn’t know if I was officially kicked out yet – and if a fight broke out, I think I should’ve at least been a witness, or something like that. Still, I couldn’t keep from squirming in discomfort as I just stared at my phone to look distracted.

So that’s what it felt like to be a third wheel, I guess.

“Anthony, dude, c’mon. I just…I dunno.” Andy spoke quietly like he did the previous night.

“Tell me what you told him.” Anthony’s voice had no hard edges this time, which was something new in itself. “I don’t care, okay? We gotta nip it in the bud.”

“It’s just, I’m scared,” Andy mumbled.

“Of what? What’s there to be scared of?”

He held his breath and let it out in a sigh. “I’m…I’m gonna fuck up. I fucking suck at this stuff, you know that. I don’t know anything about being in a relationship.”

“Define ‘fuck up.’”

“Like,” Andy grunted, staring at the ceiling, “I don’t know what to do in public, and, like, I suck at kissing. And I’m probably gonna suck at other stuff too.” He said that last part lowly, his cheeks ablaze.

“That’s what you’re afraid of?” Anthony smirked. “Dude, I couldn’t care less if you just slobbered all over me and called it a kiss. That doesn’t matter to me. Now, if you were running around on me, then I’d have something to say -”

“But I would never, ever do that.”

Anthony tried to give him a deadpan stare, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Well, I could’ve guessed that. I’m just letting you know.”

“Alright.” Andy leaned back against the counter. “And…uh…we might want to fight a little less, you know.”

“No shit.” Thus returned Anthony’s “are you brain-dead or just stupid?” expression. “We know each other inside and out, man. I’ll try to be less irritating, okay? I promise.”

Andy smiled again and said, “And I’ll try to shut up, too.”

“And come to me first, alright? If you wanna talk about something, talk to me. I won’t get mad at you or anything stupid like that.” He stepped closer, barely half an inch shorter than Andy but super skinny compared to him. “I know you meant well, and it doesn’t really matter what you did last night, but I kinda wanna hear it from you only.”

“Alright, noted,” Andy nodded, his face flushing back to its normal tan color again.

Now, keep in mind here that during this whole leg of the conversation, they just kinda forgot the fact that I was sitting in the couch pit on my own, thumbing through nonexistent text messages just to look like I was distracted. So maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised when Andy actually leaned over and gave Anthony a big smooch right on the lips, and yet there I sat, my eyes wide for a fleeting moment after realizing just what I was doing.

They stayed like that in their own little intimate moment for a few seconds, arms around each other. It actually would’ve been sweet if I weren’t the third wheel right then.

Of course, Anthony had to shatter the intimacy when they broke away from each other. He caught a glimpse of me a few feet away on the couch and immediately jumped back, holding onto Andy’s arm for support. “Holy shit, I forgot you were still here! Er, uh…sorry you had to see that.”

All at once I felt how red I was. “No, it’s no big problem. Uh, I mean – no big deal.”

Anthony smiled right at me, warm without being too flared-up like he normally was. Andy mirrored the same expression.

“Also, Oshie,” Anthony started, raising his eyebrow, “if you're ever lonely…give us a call.”

“Wait, what?” Andy said in disbelief before I could even say anything coherent.

“I was kidding!” he laughed. “You can hang here for as long as you want, Osh. We got a ton of stuff for lunch if you’re hungry.”

I hardly thought that being alone in an apartment with them was a good idea in the first place, so naturally I wanted to spend as little time with them as I could. I pulled my phone back out of my pocket and pretended to look at the time. “I, uh, I can’t, I have homework due tomorrow. Sorry, guys.”

“You’re welcome to drop by anytime though, dude,” he insisted, shrugging.

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind,” I forced a laugh, standing up. “I’ll see you guys later, then.”

I meandered my way over to the door, but not without Andy coming up behind me and loudly saying, “And listen, I’m sorry for dragging you into this. You didn’t have to get tied up in it all and then I was an idiot and dumped all my crap on you.”

“No, it’s no problem,” I awkwardly denied. It was times like those when I was glad I wasn’t white; if I were paler, the crimson on my face would’ve been a lot more noticeable.

Andy opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but he stopped and just hugged me for a few seconds. Over his shoulder, I caught a glance of Anthony smiling at me again, that kind of smile nice strangers give you when you make eye contact with them on the streets. Then he looked over at the back of Andy’s head and his eyes glazed over, and it was one of the corniest possible moments in my young life, considering how happy we all were.

I said my farewells and continued back to my dorm, back to my comfortable normalcy with a few midterms hanging over my head. One hurricane had blown over, and even if I had already known at that point that there would be many more to come, it just felt okay to say that I wasn’t getting rained on at the moment.