Star Eyed (Chapter Two of Five)
Dancing with other's like myself, It's me and them and nobody else. Rays of the moon lighten up our dance floor, Escaping to a land where it's evermore.
We’ll just glide, starry eyed -Hallo A. Lilium
Chapter Two:
As far as plans go, Andrew has always been slightly unconventional. He once climbed onto the roof of his ex-girlfriend’s house as a way to be romantic. He imagined himself being like Spiderman, scaling up the side of her house, however, in reality he only succeeded in almost breaking his neck and was subsequently subjected to an hour of Lily scorning him for his recklessness. The point is, if you go big-- go big. Extravagance is encouraged. Some may feel this behavior bereft and jejune, but lucky for him Carey is enthusiastic in indulging his love for baroque emphasis. Although it’s only if he’s up front and genuine when he asks her.
Andrew has often thought of his considerable lank to be a disadvantage, but then there are certain times like this when it means invading Carey’s personal space in order to ask for a favor with relative physical ease. Curving his spine across the wooden plank and towards the desk in front of him, he hisses “Carey!” in her ear when he’s slided up. Carey jumps. She lets out a breath, startled from the sterile safety of her chemistry equations and thrusted into the bustling traffic that seems to surround Andrew. “What is it?” she gasps, exasperated. She turns her head slightly, the corners of her eyes glaring blatant annoyance at him, with underlying traces of amusement.
“I need your help.” Andrew said. There’s a hint of desperation that he winces at and tries to ignore. Naturally, Carey not only noticed this weakness, but seemed to draw power from it. Revolving her entire body to the side, she twisted her pink mouth into a devilish smirk before asking, “With what?” in a hushed, sing-song falsetto.
But, the thing is, although they never really see eye to eye, and they often fight over minor differences, the bond they do have is still the protective and loyal kind you would associate with best friends. Carey once coaxed him out of a panic attack, and when Shia LaBastard broke up with her, Andrew had mailed smashed transformers to him in an act of maliciousness to avenge Carey’s heart. So going to the student store after class and purchasing two industrial sized packets of post-its isn’t the strangest thing they’ve done. Nor was sitting cross legged on Andrew’s floor, slowly and diligently filling them out, throwing them into a pile between them as they were completed.
Carey sat, back curved slightly as she hunched over her knees where her French book was acting as a desk for her post-it creation; across from her, Andrew leaned against his desk, limbs splayed unceremoniously and cupping his hand around an entire pad of post-its as he lifted it towards his eyes to messily scrawl the message. These positions were not unfamiliar to either party, as they both had previously spent many hours on the floor in these exact places during spur of the moment therapy sessions, study (or in Andrew’s case: cram) dates, or just friendly games of Scrabble. However, this was the longest time they had worked diligently in complete silence. Without Carey stopping to pick up his clothes and demand Andrew take better care of his room, or Andrew making small talk that ends up being cringe-worthy in its absolute awkwardness.
From Andrew’s ipod speakers, Edmund was blasting. Arthur Darville’s voice crooning, “Can every time I breath in be every time you breath out?” He peeled another post-it off of the pack and threw it towards the center of the room to rejoin the others.
The harlequin pieces of paper were identical with the heading “WANTED” in large bold pen and under it a crammed description of the ‘cynical, brilliant mind last spotted in text form on the bench outside of the L.A. wing. Where are you?‘cramped on the small square in black ink.
“Where are you going to put these?” Carey places another finished product to the steadily growing pile. “In the hallways? On random lockers?”
Andrew put down the pack of post-its, his forehead crinkling together “I don’t know, really. I just...” he collapsed. “I would have to put them somewhere obvious, but out of sight.”
Carey’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well...” Andrew started, “It’s rather like past experience really... I mean, the first time I ever read a message was on the bottom of a bench.”
“So, you’re planning to plaster these all over the bench?”
“No, no... I just wanted to build off of that.” He looks up from the pile to meet Carey’s eyes, “They look in nooks and crannies people normally walk past, they look under benches. I just think that they would appreciate me trying to learn their aberrant ways instead of simply going after what I know for sure.”
Carey’s head is thoughtfully cocked to the side, so apparently charmed by what he said that her dimples deepened in her cheeks as she smiled.
“Plus,” Andrew continued, looking away and turning his bashful gaze towards his packet of post-its, galvanized into writing again from his embarrassment. “they might not really want to talk to me anymore, they probably got bored or annoyed and if they stop looking, then they wont find them and I wont et rejected.”
He looks up at Carey sputtering out compliments, her words trying to counter his self-deprecation, and he immediately feels terrible. He reaches over and grips her wrist in his hand, squeezing gently as he say, “I wasn’t fishing, really, but thank you.”
She gives him a sweet smile and they both get back to work, his ipod turning over to another song, I turn my camera on, I cut my fingers on the way...
-
Between the two of them, Carey and Andrew managed to distribute toe post-it around the school. Carful to document exactly where they placed them, Andrew kept the key with him at all times, often checking that it was still there between class. Although it initially seemed to be more in character to stick them around in spontaneous abandon, his whimsy guiding the way, his feeling of fear in his gut urged him to know where every post-it was. The thought of missing a response because of the possibility that he just forgot was so haunting, the idea that there could be a post-it wait somewhere for him under a desk that he skipped over so awful, that he acquiesced to the key.
It was peculiar that something so dynamic, like his happiness, rested on such a small bit of paper with a glue-strip. He had to restrain himself from checking all the little black bullets on the key, forcing himself to withstand at least a week before going back to them.
To distract himself, Andrew became busy with schoolwork and friends, listening to Rob’s recent annecdote about his relationship with Kristen (Andrew had never met her, but from these little stories felt as if he knew way too much), Matt’s new study group in Science, and Mr. Fincher’s class after school. The last thing actually claiming up most of his time.
Andrew started working on hid group readings with Emma after their class on Thursday. Emma shared a dorm room with Taylor, a tall beautiful blonde who went trough so many guys, Andrew eventually stopped asking when she came into the dorm room complaining about boy troubles.
Through studying together, Andrew and Emma became two cogs, engaging with each others’ grooves, focused on achieving the goal.Emma always knew when to stop and grab a snack or a drink to rest their minds. Snapping Andrew out of his laser focused mode with ease. When Andrew truly sets his mind on something he can go on and on like an personified energizer bunny. He’ll work tirelessly to achieve his goal.
I
t was the day before he went back to check all the post-its, Emma and Andrew were working on their own response questions and essays for the collection of works by one A. Sorkin when Emma’s door opened and a voice wavered a small, “I need to hide here.” through the dorm.
Andrew look up to see a boy with a cloud of curly hair surrounding his face gaping at him. His eyes were wide and surprised. Maybe he just wasn’t used to the company...
Emma;s eye’s didn’t even leave the page she was reading as she called over her shoulder, “Go ahead.” Her pen scribbling away.
The boy moved towards the corner of the room, moving Taylor’s guitar where it was propped against the wall and sliding down to the floor. He stretched over to the bookshelf and grabbed a thick volume, removing the bookmark, he started reading, amercing himself in the book.
Andrew tried to ignore the distraction, and concentrate on the assignment. Forcing his pen to scratch globby black ink across the page, he tried to focus on the music pumping from his ipod’s speakers. It was his Study Tunes playlist. Consisting mostly of instrumentals, with mind buzzing ballades interspersed for variety, Andrew like to think of it as a lightning rod, harnessing his brain into his focused state. However, the stranger made this difficult. Andrew tried to push the thoughts out of his mind, trudging on.
Eventually, Emma needed a break, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes, she sniped an abrupt, “Hey! Bambi!” towards him.
He came out of his schoolwork induced haze.
“Yeah?” he called back. Andrew plucked the earbuds out of his ears.
“I’m getting a drink and a breather.” Emma walked towards the mini-fridge hidden behind the bed. The school prohibited and food or drink not served in the canteen during class hours, but most students snuck them in anyway. No repercussions. because no one got caught.
“Want one, boys?” She called over to them as she pulled out a can of generic pop.
“Sure.” came the call from the other boy. Andrew was normally gracious when he was in other people’s dorms. He tried not to impose too much. He declined the offer every other time Emma offered, but for some reason finally broke down.
“Me too.” he said.
Emma procured two more cans of pop, something in a loud color and blocky letters, she handed one to Andrew and the other to the boy who had come over to the table. Soon the room was filled with the crack of metal and the hiss of carbon pressure.
Gulping down her own soda, Emma looked towards the boy. “So who are you hiding from today?”
“The world.” Came the reply. Then after a beat, “I mean, I normally think it’s conspiring against me most days, but I just returned from another run in with Armie and his psychotic twin trying to wear me down and get me to go to prom. They’re refusing to leave the subject alone.”
“So... you’re hiding here?” Andrew found himself asking. Boys weren’t normally allowed in girls’ dorm unless study was involved. The room managers were more strict on the rules than in the boys dorms, which is why Andrew had never been to Carey’s room, although she had been to his several times.
Waving this question away, Emma explains to Andrew, “Your allowed in the dorm room because your working on a project and Fincher gave you permission, right? And even then you probably have to clear out by eight. Well, the faculty adore little virginal Jesse here, so he gets the run of the place.”
Andrew looked over towards Jesse whose had blush hued his cheeks, looking flushed as he traced designs in the condensation of his can.
“But,” Emma continued, “If they say anyone else, especially Armie and Josh, with their blatant masculinity, they would flip their
shit.” She took another gulp, “Plus,” she added as an afterthought, “Elizabeth, Armie’s girlfriend, would probably kill him if he tried.”
Andrew tried not to look so incredulous about this new information. He was about to respond when the door burst open and a crying blonde entered in hysterics.
“Oh, lovely.” said Emma, as she stood up and wrapped her arms around the other girl. “What did he do, Taylor?”
While the other girl sobbed into Emma’s neck, Emma seemed to be squinting commands at Jesse. What was more miraculous was he fact that Jesse seemed to understand these messages, because he immediately got up and nudged Andrew’s elbow until he rose as well. Jerking his head towards the door, they moved out together trying to ignore the sobs filling the room... or, rather, Andrew was ignoring them, Jesse seemed to actually find it normal, perhaps from all of the other times he’s hidden out in Emma’s dorm.
“Do you have money?” He asked once Andrew closed the door.
“Yeah.” said Andrew, “My books are in there, though-”
“You can get them later.” Jesse turned and walked towards the stairs. “Whenever Taylor breaks up with someone Emma sends me out for chocolate and Pride and Prejudice.” Andrew joined him, and they descended the stairs together. “I can drive us.” he said. “But, we have to make sure we’re back before curfew.”
So that’s how Andrew ended up going to Blockbuster and Walgreens when he should have been studying. That’s how Andrew first truly met Jesse.