The Biggest Fan

Love Is In the Air.

At noon, Jepha and Dan were still playing with Bert watching.
I didn’t want to join them anymore, so I got up from where I was sitting and headed down the hallway to the bus.

“Hey, where you goin´?”, Bert asked, almost surprised.
“Just to the end.”
I hardly bothered answering him.
After all, he was the one asking for more time alone to think, not me.

“Oh…”, he said, his eyes yet again fixated on the TV screen.
As I went down the bus, I stopped at the kitchen area, leaning on the counter before putting my hands on my face.
I took a deep breath as I buried my face in my hands, filling my lounges with air before blowing it all out.

“Hey, what’s up?”, a gentle voice said behind me, putting their hand on my shoulder.
It was Quinn.
“Oh, nothing. I just-. No, it’s nothing. Forget it.”
“Tell me. I know something’s up. I can tell. Is it Bert?”
I didn’t say a word, I just kept my silence, knowing that by that, I blew my cover.

“Ohh, I see. Well, you just gotta ignore him. He can be a handful sometimes, you know.”
“Yeah”, I replied almost unnoticeable while taking another deep breath, letting the air out.
“Hey, wanna play Scrabble with me?”, Quinn then suddenly asked out of the blue. “I’m actually kinda good.”
“Sure”, I said. I needed to take my mind off of things.

And he was right, he was good. I only managed to spell the words, DOG, KITE, MILK and DIARRHOEA.
I mean, come on; what do you give that?
Okay, so I sucked at Scrabble, but I owned Quinn in connect 4.
He didn’t stand a chance!
We played for hours. It was only him and me that afternoon. We couldn’t care less about the others who were gaming on video consoles.

“So, how’s everythin´ going? Like, being away from your friends and family, I mean”, Quinn suddenly asked, about to put the games away.
I wasn’t expecting him to ask that at all.
“Fine, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, I do think of them every day, but right now, I’m enjoying life just like it is, with you guys and all.
Already, I’ve experienced so many things that only a week ago I could only imagine being a part of, and because of that, I don’t have time to miss anyone at home.”

“That’s good to hear”, Quinn said, giving me a smile.
He really had one of the cutest smiles I’d ever seen.
It was by that hard thinking of him as a grown 26-year-old man.

“Also, it’s not like I’ve forgotten the people I love back home. If you’ve noticed, I have been using Bert’s laptop occasionally, just to mail back home and stuff.
Just to tell everyone that I’m doing fine. I blog too actually.”
“Oh, really? You do? That’s awesome! I blog sometimes too. Or, we guys do. We blog on MySpace sometimes, sending out bulletins. But I guess that doesn’t count.”
“Of course it does. I read every single one of them”, I said, biting on one of my finger nails.
“Really? Wow, that’s really great. Haha, I thought no one actually bothered doing that“.
“Well, I do”, I answered, almost feeling proud that I actually meant that.

At that point, after playing board games with Quinn for several hours that afternoon, I felt like we almost connected that day, as we had tied a bond.
He was a good guy, beautiful on the inside as much as on the outside.
He was almost like the big brother that I never got the chance to know.
He died when he was very young from a heart failure.
They would’ve been at the same age now…

“Hey, do you by any chance play an instrument or something. Like, guitar for example?”, Quinn suddenly asked me with an excited voice.
“Yeah, actually I do. Or, I suck, though. But still, I know a few grips on the guitar and I can play one song”, I answered while blushing.
I felt kind of embarrassed.

“Awesome! Which song?”
“’Love Is In the Air’. And don’t laugh because I got a B+ on it when I played it with vocals in Junior High.”
I couldn’t help blushing.

“Man, then you gotta play it for me!”, he said before getting his guitar.
“No, I can’t. I sing terrible. I suck, honestly.”
“Nooo. Please play. For me?”
His sad, pouted mouth was irresistible, I couldn’t turn him down.
“Okay”, I said, rolling my eyes with a smile.
Even though I held the guitar crooked like I had always done since I first learned how to play the guitar, he didn’t comment on it.
He was the first one...
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my mibba is being so mean nowadays. D:
it won't let me update when i want to. >.<
well, i updated now. i negotiated with mibba, rofl. :]]]

xo,
lina.