D&J - Gratified Affair - 16/?
Gratified Affair
drake & josh. drake/mindy, josh/ofc. 5926 words. PG13.
“Whoa! Hey, hey what’s happening? What’s happening?” Drake started to exclaim and a burning, prickly sensation ran hot up the length of his arms as he continued to freak out. “Okay, arms tingling! Arms tingling!”
previous chapters
Saturday night, Mindy’s bedroom, a week later
Mindy finished putting together the last few buttons of her oxford shirt and she stretched out along the length of her bed while Drake bent over to find his t-shirt that had been tossed aside earlier.
“Try looking under the bed,” she offered as she twisted her body to grab the English book that was on her nightstand. She began to lazily flip through it as Drake stood and stretched the black fabric over his head.
“Got it. Whatcha doing?”
“Some homework. Want to study with me?”
He flopped on the bed next to her and propped his head up on her pillow while raising an eyebrow. “Me? Study?”
“Just a thought. Might give you something to do besides mope around about Josh.”
“I wasn’t going to mope around about Josh,” Drake replied as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Please. I know you’re still irritated about what happened at the Premiere a couple days ago.”
“He blew me off for our tradition of Bad Movie Tuesdays to go to some stupid laser show!”
“Craig and Eric said that the show was pretty neat,” Mindy said, stopping on the chapter discussing Oedipus. It was a lame attempt to switch subjects, but he saw through her.
“Mindy, so not the point.”
“Fine. What’s really bothering you?”
“That it’s been almost a week of Josh ignoring me, giving me the silent treatment, and just acting really weird and quiet. He’s been going on dates and playing racquetball with Helen and just acting like I don’t even exist,” Drake listed in an exasperated tone. “He has never been mad at me for this long and I’m beginning to think that Megan was right, that I might’ve pushed him over the edge.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“What? No, he’d wonder why you were pushing him to be nice to me and we can’t exactly explain that, can we?”
“No, I guess not,” Mindy answered as she rolled on her side to face him. He looked so sad and pathetic while pouting against her lacy pillows that it almost would’ve made her laugh if she hadn’t been discouraged by the whole situation. “Just give it a few more days. I’m sure it’ll get better.”
“And what if it doesn’t? What if Josh is right and we’re just roommates until he heads off to college?” Drake asked, a hint of whine tingeing his voice. “I’ll have to deal with this for another year.”
“It’s not going to get worse,” she assured him.
“But what if it does?”
“It won’t.”
“He seemed pretty set on the idea of cutting me out of his life.”
“He won’t.”
“But what if he does?”
“Drake!” Mindy exclaimed, frustrated. He’d been acting like this all week and she tried to understand and be a good listener, but it was getting harder each day. She sat up and crossed her legs Indian-style on top of the mattress while patting his knee. “Sweetie, I’m trying to be a good girlfriend here, but you’re making it extremely difficult.”
“I’m making it difficult? I’m making it difficult?” Drake asked irrationally.
“Well, maybe if you stopped whining about Josh and gave him his space-“
“I have given him nothing but space,” he pointed out. “I spent the whole morning trying to fix my guitar strings and he’s the one throwing it in my face that he’s gotten so buddy buddy with Megan. Maybe she should be his new brother.”
“Maybe you should give me space because you’re really starting to make me mad,” Mindy grumbled, clearly irritated.
“Fine, I will!” Drake shot back and he slid off the bed and grabbed his gray jacket from the back of her desk chair. “Have fun studying on a Saturday night!”
“Have fun playing ping-pong by yourself!”
The sound of her bedroom door slamming echoed through the empty house until she heard his car peel off down the road.
--
”Here’s ten dollars. Go outside, go do something, go hang out with your friends,” Audrey listed, irritation building. “I know you and Josh are going through a tough time, but Drake, you’ve been stomping around here, pissed off, like the world is about to end. Get out of the house and cool off.”
“Fine! Fine, that’s just great!”
The conversation from earlier with his mother replayed over in his head as Drake peeled out of Mindy’s subdivision and started cruising toward the Premiere, for a lack of anywhere else to go. The anger from his fight with Mindy wasn’t subsiding like he’d hoped, but he was momentarily distracted when his car seemed to be slowing down. He hit the gas harder to gain more speed and the car did the opposite.
“No, no, no,” Drake muttered under his breath as he pulled over to the side of the road. Slowly, but surely, the car wheezed to a stop on the hot asphalt and he looked at the dashboard to see the gas gauge read empty. “Perfect, just perfect.”
Stepping out of the car, he wasn’t really sure of what to do. Cars whizzed by him on the street, as if to mock him, and he lost it. The sun was slowly sinking into the sky to create twilight, but it was still hot enough that Drake could feel beads of sweat drip down his neck as he kicked the wheels and the side of the car. It felt good to get his frustrations out physically, but he was still mad at the world when he stopped kicking the wheels. After a few minutes, he grabbed the keys, locked the car, and walked with each step feeling angrier than the one before it.
Ten minutes later, Drake walked into the blaringly bright lobby of the Premiere Theater and seeing Josh behind the counter didn’t help to brighten his mood.
“Hello Josh,” he said savagely as he walked up to the candy counter.
“Hi Drake,” Josh replied quietly and that just infuriated him more. He understood that Josh was mad at him, but he wasn’t acting like it and Drake didn’t know how to cope with that.
“Why are you all sweaty?” Eric (or maybe Craig) asked from the other side of the counter.
“I’m all sweaty because I ran out of gas and had to walk all the way here because somebody forgot to fill up the car!” Drake answered vehemently, making sure to keep his eyes locked on his brother.
“It’s not my responsibility to fill the car with gas,” Josh explained.
“You always fill up the car!”
“Used to. Now I put in just enough gas for myself.”
“Well, good!” Drake spat back, though it clearly wasn’t. “Good for you! I don’t need your gas! And just so you know, I’m gonna go see a movie right now and I don’t need a free ticket from you because Mom paid me ten bucks to get out of the house! So I don’t need you for anything.”
“Movie tickets here are eleven dollars,” a female voice piped up and Drake recognized her as Leah, the girl who worked on Josh’s shift sometimes.
“What?!”
“And popcorn and soda are gonna cost you another six or seven,” Craig (Eric?) added.
“Oh! You know what, I’m not even gonna buy a ticket, I’m just going in!” Drake exclaimed, walking toward a bank of theaters. “Just going right in!” When he reached the guy taking tickets, Drake felt no remorse in screaming in his face before continuing his walk into a random theater.
He picked a seat in the back of a random theater and plopped down as he felt the air conditioning start to cool him off. Drake slumped against the scratchy fabric and tried to ignore the pounding headache that had started as a dull ache when his car ran out of gas earlier.
When Drake tried to figure out what movie was playing on the screen, he noticed two security guards standing on either side of him.
“Sir, could we see your ticket?”
“I…I don’t have one,” Drake admitted. “But my brother works here, it’s cool.”
“Sir, please come quietly with us.”
“What? No, no, it’s fine!” he pleaded. “Or go ask Helen! She loves me, seriously.”
“Sir, please cooperate and don’t make this harder on yourself. Come with us, we’ll get this straightened out.”
“Oh yeah? Make me.”
In a flash, both security guards grabbed his arms and forcibly dragged him out of the theater.
“Hey, hey, let go, let go! Josh, Josh, tell them to let me go!” Drake screamed as the guards dragged him out into the lobby and past the candy counter. “Josh, Josh, tell them! Wait, I know this guy, I know this guy - ask him!”
“This guy a friend of yours?” the security guard closest to Josh asked and Drake saw no emotion coming from his brother’s face.
“No, he’s not.”
Widening his eyes, Drake felt new waves of anger overtake him while the guards continued to drag him out of the theater. “Josh! Oh, you’re gonna regret this Josh! You need me! You need me!”
The guards dumped him wordlessly on the sidewalk in front of the theater and Drake tried to keep it together long enough to call his mom and ask for a ride home.
--
The rest of the weekend was a quiet one. Drake stayed in bed all day Sunday and didn’t get up for anything, not even when his phone rang. He was tired of being so amped up on anger and resentment and for what? To constantly run into the emotional brick wall that was formerly his brother? Fine, if Josh wanted to play that way, Drake could dish it right back out and he was starting to think that maybe some time apart would be a good thing if that’s what it took to get Josh to come to his senses.
Monday morning came faster than he wanted it to and Drake woke up to a vacant bedroom; looking across the room, he saw that Josh’s bed was already empty and made and when he looked at the clock, he realized he only had twenty minutes to make it to Mr. Roland’s class on time.
Luckily, Megan’s carpool was able to give him a lift (Megan pretended not to know who he was for the entire ride) and he raced down the slowly emptying hallways as the warning bells chimed throughout the school.
Turning the corner, Drake saw that the door to Mr. Roland’s class was closing and he burst into a full out sprint before being able to make his way into the classroom.
“I’m here! I’m here, I’m here!” he proclaimed, out of breath as he shut the door behind him.
“Yes, with three seconds to spare,” Mr. Roland told him.
“Sorry, it’s just that Josh used to wake me up every morning,” Drake explained, gesturing toward his brother in the back of the class.
“Used to,” Josh replied and Drake couldn’t think of a phrase he was more tired of hearing.
“Mr. Parker, your personal problems don’t interest me,” Mr. Roland interrupted. “Please go to your lab station.”
“Yes, sir.” Drake walked toward the table Josh was sitting at and waved hello to Kat. “Hey Kat.”
“Hey Drake - is that a zit?” she asked incredulously. Drake, wide-eyed and nervous, turned around quickly to face her.
“Huh?” he asked, taking the compact mirror Kat handed him. Sure enough, a tiny, angry looking, red bump was starting to form on his chin. “Oh no! I’ve never had a zit before! I’m Drake, I don’t get zits.”
“Drake, please,” Mr. Roland said, obviously tired of the interruptions.
“Why do I have a zit?”
“Just zit down!” Mr. Roland told him, before realizing his poor choice of words. “Sit! Sit down at your lab station.”
Handing Kat back the compact, Drake made his way to his assigned seat before seeing that his classmate Rokey was already sitting there. He stood there, impatiently, before speaking when he realized Rokey wasn’t going to move. “Move!”
“No,” Rokey answered simply before looking at Josh.
“Rokey’s my new lab partner,” Josh stated, refusing to look Drake in the eye.
“Dude, I’m your lab partner. I’ve been your lab partner all year!”
“I asked Mr. Roland if I could switch and now Rokey is my new lab partner,” Josh continued, still not making eye contact and the small action was starting to piss Drake off.
“I realize this is awkward,” Rokey said, not helping the situation.
Mr. Roland walked up to Drake, who asked him a question; “Who’s gonna be my lab partner now?”
“You will work with…Clayton.”
Clayton, in all his dorky gloriousness, turned around in his seat and flashed a big, goofy smile. No one ever wanted to work with him because it was too difficult to understand him and Drake couldn’t help expressing his discontent.
“Ohhh no!” he exclaimed, but he trudged over to the empty seat anyway, because what else was there to do? In doing so, he passed Craig and Eric’s table and thought he heard some snickering and the word “nerd”; all Drake could do was sigh before he sat down.
“Hi Clayton,” Drake said, trying to salvage the situation. The other boy smiled and waved again and Drake couldn’t believe that this was only the beginning of what was shaping up to be a pretty awful day.
“All right, your instructions are on the board. Please begin your experiments,” Mr. Roland announced before moving to sit at his desk and everyone in the classroom started to put on their safety goggles before getting to work.
With safety goggles in place, Drake snuck a look at the back of the classroom and saw Josh diligently pouring green liquid into a beaker. It made him sad to think that if he were back there right now, Josh would probably be doing all the work while he watched; sometimes Drake would make up little science songs to hum for whatever the experiment was until Josh either flipped out or laughed.
But now he turned back to his quiet lab table and grabbed a beaker filled with white powder and felt overwhelmingly confused as he turned to his new lab partner. “What am I supposed to mix this stuff with?”
Clayton, in his most unintelligible voice, made a few gestures, put a beaker filled with clear liquid in front of him, and mumbled out a few instructions.
“What?”
The question only seemed to irritate Clayton as his voice got louder and even harder to understand.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Drake replied helplessly.
“Drake, you better hurry or Mr. Roland’s going to get mad!” Eric interrupted quietly as he leaned across the aisle toward Drake.
“Well, I don’t know what to do! Josh usually does everything and I just watch.”
“Just take the magnesium sulfate-“
“No talking,” Mr. Roland interrupted as he looked up from the book he was reading. Eric gave a shrug as if to apologize and he got back to working on his own experiment.
Drake looked up at the board, but the green marker detailing the instructions of the experiment could’ve have been written in French for all he knew. He looked over at Clayton, but he was too busy stirring liquids in his own beaker. Figuring it was best not to bother him again, Drake remembered the start of Eric’s instructions; he grabbed for the beaker with the white powder that maybe could’ve been magnesium sulfate and poured it into the beaker with clear liquid. The last thing he expected to happen was having hot, neon green foam pour out of the beaker and over his hands.
“Whoa! Hey, hey what’s happening? What’s happening?” Drake started to exclaim and a burning, prickly sensation ran hot up the length of his arms as he continued to freak out. “Okay, arms tingling! Arms tingling!”
“Chemical emergency!” Craig exclaimed with panic in his eyes. He ran up from his table and pressed a button that caused an alarm to sound and a red light to flash as everyone looked up from their lab stations and focused on Drake.
“Let’s get him in the power shower,” Mr. Roland said to no one in particular and Drake was so focused on the way his arms felt that he didn’t realize Mr. Roland had lifted him up from his chair and put him into the shower until the door closed in front of him.
Drake yelled loudly as the water, hot and burning, blasted over him and got everything wet. He continued yelling, wishing that the water temperature would go down as he put his arms directly under the water which seemed to help with the tingling sensation. It was getting harder to see with the steam billowing up on his safety goggles and Drake desperately hoped that this was all a dream. Unfortunately, he didn’t wake up in the safety of his own bed, but the water did stop running.
“Drake, you can come out now,” Mr. Roland said calmly, but Drake barely paid attention to him.
Instead, Drake pushed open the clear, plastic door and immediately shivered when cold air rushed over his warm, wet skin. He blindly made his way toward the door while trying to get water out of his eyes and the only thought that ran through his mind was that he had to get out of here. Now.
Mr. Roland had other plans though. The teacher kept calling after Drake, who was pointedly ignoring him until he threw out a frustrated no over his shoulder. As he accidentally slid in his soaked sneakers toward the door, Drake dimly realized that all of this was his fault to begin with and that bad things were not going to stop coming unless he apologized to Josh.
“Josh!” It came out louder than he intended, but Drake focused on looking at the back of the room, at the person whom he demanded attention from.
“What?” Josh asked in a tone inflected with anger; it was the first emotion Drake had heard Josh direct at him in over a week.
“Look, I’m sorry!”
“Well-“
“Let me finish, okay? I was wrong, okay, I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Josh asked and for the first time since they were supposed to be “done”, he felt like Josh was really going to listen to him and right now, that meant everything.
“I need you more than you need me. I need you way more than you need me, all right? I’m sorry!” Drake continued and once he started, he couldn’t stop. His emotions raced at full throttle and he couldn’t help the words that tumbled out of his mouth. “Man, I’m sorry I made you late for your exam and I’m sorry I ran over your bike. I’m sorry I’m probably the worst brother in the world and you’re way better off without me, you know, and I just need you to understand…”
His pause felt epic as his mouth finally caught up with his head and he realized he couldn’t apologize for everything. Drake wanted to make Josh understand that nothing he ever did was meant to hurt him, that that was the last thing Drake ever wanted for Josh.
But 28 pairs of eyes besides Josh’s were staring back at him and it took that split second for Drake to realize how vulnerable he felt and how much he needed to escape from this nightmare that was bleeding into his life.
“…I-I-I just…I’m sorry Josh, I’m sorry.”
--
After School, same day
When the last bell rang for the day, Mindy made a quick stop at her locker before walking in the direction of Mr. Roland’s room for Science Club. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to head over to Drake’s house after Cathy (who’d heard from Craig and Eric, who were telling everyone) had told her about the now infamous Drake Parker Meltdown. She wanted to reach out to him, but maybe it was best if he was by himself. They hadn’t talked since their stupid argument on Saturday; she was contemplating being the bigger person when she saw Cathy running toward her.
“Mindy! I’m glad I caught you!” Cathy exclaimed when they met in the hallway. “Are you leaving yet?”
“No, I have Science Club in a few minutes,” Mindy answered before she noticed how distressed her best friend looked. “Why, is something wrong?”
“I needed to find you,” Cathy said while scanning the hallway. She pulled Mindy into an empty classroom and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I just heard something about Drake that I thought you should know.”
“Cath, I’ve heard like five million different things about Drake all day. What’s wrong now?”
“This is different. And I just want to say up front that I don’t know if it’s true, I’m just repeating what I heard. Don’t shoot the messenger and all that, because I know how you get.”
“If this is supposed to make me feel better, you’re doing a great job,” Mindy replied sarcastically, hoping Cathy would get to the point.
“I’m sorry, just…kinda nervous here. Okay, anyway. So I’m in the bathroom, washing my hands, when Kat McCloud walks in with a couple of her friends and it was hard to not eavesdrop, you know? I missed the beginning of the conversation, but basically Kat is going on and on about how Drake kissed her out of nowhere before Chemistry class a couple days ago and she’s just all “like so devastated” about how he acted in class today and she wondered if it was something she did. Something about a zit and her mirror? I don’t know, I just left to come find you.”
“Drake kissed another girl?” Mindy asked, feeling like her stomach had been sucker punched. “Drake kissed Kat?”
“Wait, just think about this,” Cathy said, trying to be calm for Mindy. “Kat McCloud is an evil, lying girl. You know she is such a drama queen.”
“Why would Drake kiss her?”
“Exactly! It doesn’t make sense, right?”
“No…yes. I don’t know,” Mindy answered as she rubbed her hand over her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m going over to see him. I need to get this straightened out.”
“Wait, what about Josh? What if he’s ditching the club meeting too?” Cathy asked, following her out into the hallway.
“He told me at lunch that he was going,” Mindy shrugged. “Maybe he’s trying to avoid Drake, I don’t know. I’ll call you later, okay?”
--
Parker/Nichols’ House, 20 minutes later
Lying on the couch with the music blasting, Drake just barely heard the knock on his bedroom door. He begrudgingly slid off the sofa and made his way toward the door, not bothering to turn down the music. He didn’t know who to expect, but surprise colored his face when he saw Mindy. They both stood for a moment before she spoke.
“The front door was open.”
Drake nodded, not really caring how she got in. He threw his arms around her neck, happy to see a face that didn’t hate him; it wasn’t long before they were kissing, hotly mouthing at each other’s lips as he pulled her into the room and closed the door behind her.
Her tongue swiped lightly over his bottom lip and Drake thought it was a miracle they didn’t break their ankles while coming down the steps. They crashed soon enough on to the sofa; her bare knees knocking with his flannel covered ones as he felt the sofa cushions on his back soften their fall. She groaned when his lips moved from her mouth, over her jaw line, and started nipping the curve of her neck.
“Drake…” Mindy said softly, but he didn’t stop. She thought maybe the music was too loud and this felt too good, but she had to stop it. “Drake…come on. You’re gonna leave a mark.”
Breaking the connection, she rolled away, walked toward the radio and decisively turned it off in the middle of a raging guitar solo. Silence blanketed the room as they both looked at each other; frustration was built up inside of her and confusion was written all over his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t come over here for…that,” she told him as she straightened out her shirt. He lifted an eyebrow as she continued. “I need to ask you something.”
“Okay,” he answered slowly as she walked over and moved his feet off the couch so she could sit down.
“Drake…did you kiss Kat McCloud?”
He felt blood drain quickly from his cheeks and tried to swallow away his dry mouth before speaking. “What?”
“Cathy overheard her in the bathroom today talking about how you kissed her before class or something? Please tell me it’s not true.”
“Sort of,” Drake said as he cringed on the inside.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that Kat kissed me, okay? We were talking and out of nowhere, she just plants one on me,” he told her apologetically while looking at his hands. When he lifted his head, it was hard to read her expression. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You would say that,” Mindy muttered, all sorts of thoughts racing through her head. “When Cathy told me, I didn’t believe her. I really thought that you’d changed, but I guess it was only a matter of time.”
“Hey, I have changed! Do you know what I’ve given up for you?”
“What you’ve given up for me? What are you trying to say, that I’m holding you back from your potential as a future home wrecker?” she asked, mixture of sarcasm and anger, as she stood up from the couch.
“I didn’t say you were holding me back so quit putting words in my mouth, Mindy.”
“What are you trying to say then, Drake?”
“I don’t know,” Drake admitted as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I’m just saying that I gave up a lot to be with you.”
The room was quiet enough that a pin drop could’ve been heard as Mindy gave him a hard look. “Drake, you are impossible. For somebody who is trying to convince me that they’ve changed, you certainly sound a lot like the old Drake.”
“Wait, hang on a sec-“ he started to say as he stood up to meet her at eye level, but she poked him in the chest with her index finger.
“No, you just hang on a second,” Mindy said sternly. “I know you’re going through a rough time, but I want to make it so crystal clear to you that I did not force you into this relationship.”
“I know, but-“
“I’m sorry about what’s going on with you and Josh, but we could’ve have told him earlier,” she continued and when he looked like he was going to say something, she spoke over him. “Yes, we could have. It would’ve been hard, but we wouldn’t be here right now arguing.
“And one more thing. I’m not mad that you kissed Kat or Kat kissed you, or whatever. But if you’re going to sit there and try to tell me that you’re sorry to be in this relationship, that you’re having second thoughts or whatever, then maybe you shouldn’t be in this relationship.”
He wished he could put a pause on all of this and take some time to figure this whole thing out because he felt like he was spinning way out of control. Anything he tried saying was getting blown out of context and he took a deep breath as she looked at him, waiting for some kind of response.
“I want to be with you,” Drake told her pleadingly as he looked into her angry, brown eyes. He reached for her hand, holding it in his own as his thumb ran over the beads of the bracelet he gave her. Saying the words out loud gave him a little sense of clarity, but it wasn’t enough for her.
“Then start acting like it. Tell Josh. Let’s get everything out into the open.”
“Yeah right, like it’s that easy.”
“It is easy! Look, I heard about Mr. Roland’s class,” Mindy told him. “What’s the worst that could happen if you tell him now?”
He stood there with Mindy’s hand in his own and he couldn’t meet her pleading eyes; he just kept staring at the bracelet and he felt himself shake his head.
“No,” he heard himself saying. “I can’t…I can’t tell him.”
Mindy tore her hand away from his. “What? Why not? Do you want to be the old Drake again?”
“No, no it has nothing to do with that!” he tried explaining as Mindy crossed her arms in front of her chest and narrowed her eyebrows. “Mindy…Josh is everything to me, you know? If I tell him this, he would be out of my life. For good.”
“You don’t know that!” she exclaimed. “Did you ever think that maybe he could be okay with this?” Mindy turned on her heel and made her way around the ping-pong table as she began to walk toward the desk. She picked up a snow globe that was sitting on top of a stack of papers and shook it as she continued. “I’m so sick of this argument Drake. Will he be mad or will he be okay? Just over and over again.”
Drake flopped onto the couch and buried his face in his hands as his head hit the back of the couch. He let out a frustrated groan and dropped his hands when he felt the couch sink next to him; Mindy was there and it was hard to gauge how she was feeling. Probably just as confused as he was.
“Drake, we have to tell him,” Mindy said in a small voice. “We have to. I know it’ll be hard, but I’ll do this with you. Two heads are better than one, right? What do you say?”
He knew what she wanted to hear and he wanted to say it. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but fear laced through him and he couldn’t look at her when he spoke.
“I’m not telling him.” A shaky sigh and he spoke again. “You shouldn’t either.”
When Drake looked at her, it was hard to read her face. He thought that maybe her eyes looked a little glassy and when he thought about reaching for her, she broke eye contact and stood up.
He cringed when the sound of his bedroom door slammed and reverberated in the empty space. Drake stood up and filled the void with music from his stereo, but it didn’t make him feel any better so he flipped the switch to off.
Grabbing a ping-pong paddle and a couple of orange balls, Drake climbed onto the hard, wooden surface of the table and curled his legs toward his chest. The argument was all he could think about and it was driving him crazy as the words replayed over in his head. He thought he was right; he had to be, he definitely knew Josh better than Mindy ever had. Who was she to doubt him? Shouldn’t she just accept the fact that Josh could never find out about this?
Time stretched on as he slowly tortured himself by bouncing the ping-pong ball over and over again. He tried to concentrate on that instead of the niggling feeling that there was a teensy chance that Mindy could be right. He wanted so desperately for her to be wrong, but Drake couldn’t ignore the validity in what she had said. Josh was clearly through with him, why not just come clean?
He kept thinking about that as he bounced the ping-pong ball and he vaguely heard the footsteps of someone entering the room.
“Hey,” Megan said, making her presence known. “Here’s your guitar.”
He heard her footsteps get closer until she was standing near the end where his head was. A light thunk on the table and Drake looked toward her to see that she had propped his guitar up for him. Megan was one of the last people he wanted to see, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to tell her to beat it.
“Thanks.”
“You’re not even going to ask why I took your guitar?” she asked curiously.
“Why’d you take my guitar?”
“I used it to kill a spider,” Megan replied, sounding proud. Any other day or even a half an hour ago, Drake would’ve blown up at her and pushed her out of the room and would’ve spent at least fifteen minutes going over every piece of his guitar. But he didn’t.
Megan, confused by her brother’s attitude, took the guitar off the table and moved it so that it stood properly in its stand. She turned back to face Drake and couldn’t help but ask another question. "Okay, why aren't you freaking out? It's no fun messing with you if you're not gonna to freak out."
“I’m sorry.”
He clearly wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to stick around any longer. “Okay.”
“Hey.”
Megan turned around and saw Drake standing, looking pitiful as he held a ping-pong ball in his hand. “Yeah?”
“Wanna play some ping-pong?”
“Nah. You really don’t wanna put a paddle in my hand.”
Drake figured it was probably a good idea that she turned him down and watched as she made her way out of the bedroom. He walked over to one end of the ping-pong table and listlessly hit a ball to the other side. Watching as it bounced, he hit another ball before realizing how pathetic it was. He turned on his heel and thought that maybe he’d play with his guitar a little when he heard a familiar screech.
Turning, Drake faced the door to see Josh striking a samurai pose in the doorway of their bedroom.
“Mwahaha. We have unfinished business, Young Szechwan,” Josh said, complete with a goofy samurai accent. Drake was stunned to see him, acting as though the past week had never happened. All that Drake could think about was if Josh was picking now to start talking to him, maybe they should talk about everything and maybe he should lay it out on the line. He could practically see the picture of Mindy’s face in his head of how happy she would be; after all, as she had said, what did he have to lose?
“Josh-”
“Wa-Chaa!” Josh exclaimed, interrupting. “You will only address me as Master Monguku.”
The moment they were having, it was nice, Drake realized. That with all their joking aside, Josh was back. Maybe his outburst of a speech had done it to change Josh’s mind; as Drake looked at Josh and saw the best friend, the brother that he missed so much, he knew it would hurt too much to disappoint him again.
For the first time in what felt like days, Drake smiled. Josh smiled back and for a minute, Drake could forget and it felt okay.
“Your words, they are strong,” Drake said, playing along with his own goofy accent. “But your skills are weak!”
“Your foolishness, Young Szechwan, has sealed your fate!”
“Destiny is mine!”
The paddle swung back, Drake served the ball over the net, and he couldn’t have been happier to see Josh serve it right back.
chapter 17 | you really got a hold on me
drake & josh. drake/mindy, josh/ofc. 5926 words. PG13.
“Whoa! Hey, hey what’s happening? What’s happening?” Drake started to exclaim and a burning, prickly sensation ran hot up the length of his arms as he continued to freak out. “Okay, arms tingling! Arms tingling!”
previous chapters
Saturday night, Mindy’s bedroom, a week later
Mindy finished putting together the last few buttons of her oxford shirt and she stretched out along the length of her bed while Drake bent over to find his t-shirt that had been tossed aside earlier.
“Try looking under the bed,” she offered as she twisted her body to grab the English book that was on her nightstand. She began to lazily flip through it as Drake stood and stretched the black fabric over his head.
“Got it. Whatcha doing?”
“Some homework. Want to study with me?”
He flopped on the bed next to her and propped his head up on her pillow while raising an eyebrow. “Me? Study?”
“Just a thought. Might give you something to do besides mope around about Josh.”
“I wasn’t going to mope around about Josh,” Drake replied as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Please. I know you’re still irritated about what happened at the Premiere a couple days ago.”
“He blew me off for our tradition of Bad Movie Tuesdays to go to some stupid laser show!”
“Craig and Eric said that the show was pretty neat,” Mindy said, stopping on the chapter discussing Oedipus. It was a lame attempt to switch subjects, but he saw through her.
“Mindy, so not the point.”
“Fine. What’s really bothering you?”
“That it’s been almost a week of Josh ignoring me, giving me the silent treatment, and just acting really weird and quiet. He’s been going on dates and playing racquetball with Helen and just acting like I don’t even exist,” Drake listed in an exasperated tone. “He has never been mad at me for this long and I’m beginning to think that Megan was right, that I might’ve pushed him over the edge.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“What? No, he’d wonder why you were pushing him to be nice to me and we can’t exactly explain that, can we?”
“No, I guess not,” Mindy answered as she rolled on her side to face him. He looked so sad and pathetic while pouting against her lacy pillows that it almost would’ve made her laugh if she hadn’t been discouraged by the whole situation. “Just give it a few more days. I’m sure it’ll get better.”
“And what if it doesn’t? What if Josh is right and we’re just roommates until he heads off to college?” Drake asked, a hint of whine tingeing his voice. “I’ll have to deal with this for another year.”
“It’s not going to get worse,” she assured him.
“But what if it does?”
“It won’t.”
“He seemed pretty set on the idea of cutting me out of his life.”
“He won’t.”
“But what if he does?”
“Drake!” Mindy exclaimed, frustrated. He’d been acting like this all week and she tried to understand and be a good listener, but it was getting harder each day. She sat up and crossed her legs Indian-style on top of the mattress while patting his knee. “Sweetie, I’m trying to be a good girlfriend here, but you’re making it extremely difficult.”
“I’m making it difficult? I’m making it difficult?” Drake asked irrationally.
“Well, maybe if you stopped whining about Josh and gave him his space-“
“I have given him nothing but space,” he pointed out. “I spent the whole morning trying to fix my guitar strings and he’s the one throwing it in my face that he’s gotten so buddy buddy with Megan. Maybe she should be his new brother.”
“Maybe you should give me space because you’re really starting to make me mad,” Mindy grumbled, clearly irritated.
“Fine, I will!” Drake shot back and he slid off the bed and grabbed his gray jacket from the back of her desk chair. “Have fun studying on a Saturday night!”
“Have fun playing ping-pong by yourself!”
The sound of her bedroom door slamming echoed through the empty house until she heard his car peel off down the road.
--
”Here’s ten dollars. Go outside, go do something, go hang out with your friends,” Audrey listed, irritation building. “I know you and Josh are going through a tough time, but Drake, you’ve been stomping around here, pissed off, like the world is about to end. Get out of the house and cool off.”
“Fine! Fine, that’s just great!”
The conversation from earlier with his mother replayed over in his head as Drake peeled out of Mindy’s subdivision and started cruising toward the Premiere, for a lack of anywhere else to go. The anger from his fight with Mindy wasn’t subsiding like he’d hoped, but he was momentarily distracted when his car seemed to be slowing down. He hit the gas harder to gain more speed and the car did the opposite.
“No, no, no,” Drake muttered under his breath as he pulled over to the side of the road. Slowly, but surely, the car wheezed to a stop on the hot asphalt and he looked at the dashboard to see the gas gauge read empty. “Perfect, just perfect.”
Stepping out of the car, he wasn’t really sure of what to do. Cars whizzed by him on the street, as if to mock him, and he lost it. The sun was slowly sinking into the sky to create twilight, but it was still hot enough that Drake could feel beads of sweat drip down his neck as he kicked the wheels and the side of the car. It felt good to get his frustrations out physically, but he was still mad at the world when he stopped kicking the wheels. After a few minutes, he grabbed the keys, locked the car, and walked with each step feeling angrier than the one before it.
Ten minutes later, Drake walked into the blaringly bright lobby of the Premiere Theater and seeing Josh behind the counter didn’t help to brighten his mood.
“Hello Josh,” he said savagely as he walked up to the candy counter.
“Hi Drake,” Josh replied quietly and that just infuriated him more. He understood that Josh was mad at him, but he wasn’t acting like it and Drake didn’t know how to cope with that.
“Why are you all sweaty?” Eric (or maybe Craig) asked from the other side of the counter.
“I’m all sweaty because I ran out of gas and had to walk all the way here because somebody forgot to fill up the car!” Drake answered vehemently, making sure to keep his eyes locked on his brother.
“It’s not my responsibility to fill the car with gas,” Josh explained.
“You always fill up the car!”
“Used to. Now I put in just enough gas for myself.”
“Well, good!” Drake spat back, though it clearly wasn’t. “Good for you! I don’t need your gas! And just so you know, I’m gonna go see a movie right now and I don’t need a free ticket from you because Mom paid me ten bucks to get out of the house! So I don’t need you for anything.”
“Movie tickets here are eleven dollars,” a female voice piped up and Drake recognized her as Leah, the girl who worked on Josh’s shift sometimes.
“What?!”
“And popcorn and soda are gonna cost you another six or seven,” Craig (Eric?) added.
“Oh! You know what, I’m not even gonna buy a ticket, I’m just going in!” Drake exclaimed, walking toward a bank of theaters. “Just going right in!” When he reached the guy taking tickets, Drake felt no remorse in screaming in his face before continuing his walk into a random theater.
He picked a seat in the back of a random theater and plopped down as he felt the air conditioning start to cool him off. Drake slumped against the scratchy fabric and tried to ignore the pounding headache that had started as a dull ache when his car ran out of gas earlier.
When Drake tried to figure out what movie was playing on the screen, he noticed two security guards standing on either side of him.
“Sir, could we see your ticket?”
“I…I don’t have one,” Drake admitted. “But my brother works here, it’s cool.”
“Sir, please come quietly with us.”
“What? No, no, it’s fine!” he pleaded. “Or go ask Helen! She loves me, seriously.”
“Sir, please cooperate and don’t make this harder on yourself. Come with us, we’ll get this straightened out.”
“Oh yeah? Make me.”
In a flash, both security guards grabbed his arms and forcibly dragged him out of the theater.
“Hey, hey, let go, let go! Josh, Josh, tell them to let me go!” Drake screamed as the guards dragged him out into the lobby and past the candy counter. “Josh, Josh, tell them! Wait, I know this guy, I know this guy - ask him!”
“This guy a friend of yours?” the security guard closest to Josh asked and Drake saw no emotion coming from his brother’s face.
“No, he’s not.”
Widening his eyes, Drake felt new waves of anger overtake him while the guards continued to drag him out of the theater. “Josh! Oh, you’re gonna regret this Josh! You need me! You need me!”
The guards dumped him wordlessly on the sidewalk in front of the theater and Drake tried to keep it together long enough to call his mom and ask for a ride home.
--
The rest of the weekend was a quiet one. Drake stayed in bed all day Sunday and didn’t get up for anything, not even when his phone rang. He was tired of being so amped up on anger and resentment and for what? To constantly run into the emotional brick wall that was formerly his brother? Fine, if Josh wanted to play that way, Drake could dish it right back out and he was starting to think that maybe some time apart would be a good thing if that’s what it took to get Josh to come to his senses.
Monday morning came faster than he wanted it to and Drake woke up to a vacant bedroom; looking across the room, he saw that Josh’s bed was already empty and made and when he looked at the clock, he realized he only had twenty minutes to make it to Mr. Roland’s class on time.
Luckily, Megan’s carpool was able to give him a lift (Megan pretended not to know who he was for the entire ride) and he raced down the slowly emptying hallways as the warning bells chimed throughout the school.
Turning the corner, Drake saw that the door to Mr. Roland’s class was closing and he burst into a full out sprint before being able to make his way into the classroom.
“I’m here! I’m here, I’m here!” he proclaimed, out of breath as he shut the door behind him.
“Yes, with three seconds to spare,” Mr. Roland told him.
“Sorry, it’s just that Josh used to wake me up every morning,” Drake explained, gesturing toward his brother in the back of the class.
“Used to,” Josh replied and Drake couldn’t think of a phrase he was more tired of hearing.
“Mr. Parker, your personal problems don’t interest me,” Mr. Roland interrupted. “Please go to your lab station.”
“Yes, sir.” Drake walked toward the table Josh was sitting at and waved hello to Kat. “Hey Kat.”
“Hey Drake - is that a zit?” she asked incredulously. Drake, wide-eyed and nervous, turned around quickly to face her.
“Huh?” he asked, taking the compact mirror Kat handed him. Sure enough, a tiny, angry looking, red bump was starting to form on his chin. “Oh no! I’ve never had a zit before! I’m Drake, I don’t get zits.”
“Drake, please,” Mr. Roland said, obviously tired of the interruptions.
“Why do I have a zit?”
“Just zit down!” Mr. Roland told him, before realizing his poor choice of words. “Sit! Sit down at your lab station.”
Handing Kat back the compact, Drake made his way to his assigned seat before seeing that his classmate Rokey was already sitting there. He stood there, impatiently, before speaking when he realized Rokey wasn’t going to move. “Move!”
“No,” Rokey answered simply before looking at Josh.
“Rokey’s my new lab partner,” Josh stated, refusing to look Drake in the eye.
“Dude, I’m your lab partner. I’ve been your lab partner all year!”
“I asked Mr. Roland if I could switch and now Rokey is my new lab partner,” Josh continued, still not making eye contact and the small action was starting to piss Drake off.
“I realize this is awkward,” Rokey said, not helping the situation.
Mr. Roland walked up to Drake, who asked him a question; “Who’s gonna be my lab partner now?”
“You will work with…Clayton.”
Clayton, in all his dorky gloriousness, turned around in his seat and flashed a big, goofy smile. No one ever wanted to work with him because it was too difficult to understand him and Drake couldn’t help expressing his discontent.
“Ohhh no!” he exclaimed, but he trudged over to the empty seat anyway, because what else was there to do? In doing so, he passed Craig and Eric’s table and thought he heard some snickering and the word “nerd”; all Drake could do was sigh before he sat down.
“Hi Clayton,” Drake said, trying to salvage the situation. The other boy smiled and waved again and Drake couldn’t believe that this was only the beginning of what was shaping up to be a pretty awful day.
“All right, your instructions are on the board. Please begin your experiments,” Mr. Roland announced before moving to sit at his desk and everyone in the classroom started to put on their safety goggles before getting to work.
With safety goggles in place, Drake snuck a look at the back of the classroom and saw Josh diligently pouring green liquid into a beaker. It made him sad to think that if he were back there right now, Josh would probably be doing all the work while he watched; sometimes Drake would make up little science songs to hum for whatever the experiment was until Josh either flipped out or laughed.
But now he turned back to his quiet lab table and grabbed a beaker filled with white powder and felt overwhelmingly confused as he turned to his new lab partner. “What am I supposed to mix this stuff with?”
Clayton, in his most unintelligible voice, made a few gestures, put a beaker filled with clear liquid in front of him, and mumbled out a few instructions.
“What?”
The question only seemed to irritate Clayton as his voice got louder and even harder to understand.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Drake replied helplessly.
“Drake, you better hurry or Mr. Roland’s going to get mad!” Eric interrupted quietly as he leaned across the aisle toward Drake.
“Well, I don’t know what to do! Josh usually does everything and I just watch.”
“Just take the magnesium sulfate-“
“No talking,” Mr. Roland interrupted as he looked up from the book he was reading. Eric gave a shrug as if to apologize and he got back to working on his own experiment.
Drake looked up at the board, but the green marker detailing the instructions of the experiment could’ve have been written in French for all he knew. He looked over at Clayton, but he was too busy stirring liquids in his own beaker. Figuring it was best not to bother him again, Drake remembered the start of Eric’s instructions; he grabbed for the beaker with the white powder that maybe could’ve been magnesium sulfate and poured it into the beaker with clear liquid. The last thing he expected to happen was having hot, neon green foam pour out of the beaker and over his hands.
“Whoa! Hey, hey what’s happening? What’s happening?” Drake started to exclaim and a burning, prickly sensation ran hot up the length of his arms as he continued to freak out. “Okay, arms tingling! Arms tingling!”
“Chemical emergency!” Craig exclaimed with panic in his eyes. He ran up from his table and pressed a button that caused an alarm to sound and a red light to flash as everyone looked up from their lab stations and focused on Drake.
“Let’s get him in the power shower,” Mr. Roland said to no one in particular and Drake was so focused on the way his arms felt that he didn’t realize Mr. Roland had lifted him up from his chair and put him into the shower until the door closed in front of him.
Drake yelled loudly as the water, hot and burning, blasted over him and got everything wet. He continued yelling, wishing that the water temperature would go down as he put his arms directly under the water which seemed to help with the tingling sensation. It was getting harder to see with the steam billowing up on his safety goggles and Drake desperately hoped that this was all a dream. Unfortunately, he didn’t wake up in the safety of his own bed, but the water did stop running.
“Drake, you can come out now,” Mr. Roland said calmly, but Drake barely paid attention to him.
Instead, Drake pushed open the clear, plastic door and immediately shivered when cold air rushed over his warm, wet skin. He blindly made his way toward the door while trying to get water out of his eyes and the only thought that ran through his mind was that he had to get out of here. Now.
Mr. Roland had other plans though. The teacher kept calling after Drake, who was pointedly ignoring him until he threw out a frustrated no over his shoulder. As he accidentally slid in his soaked sneakers toward the door, Drake dimly realized that all of this was his fault to begin with and that bad things were not going to stop coming unless he apologized to Josh.
“Josh!” It came out louder than he intended, but Drake focused on looking at the back of the room, at the person whom he demanded attention from.
“What?” Josh asked in a tone inflected with anger; it was the first emotion Drake had heard Josh direct at him in over a week.
“Look, I’m sorry!”
“Well-“
“Let me finish, okay? I was wrong, okay, I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Josh asked and for the first time since they were supposed to be “done”, he felt like Josh was really going to listen to him and right now, that meant everything.
“I need you more than you need me. I need you way more than you need me, all right? I’m sorry!” Drake continued and once he started, he couldn’t stop. His emotions raced at full throttle and he couldn’t help the words that tumbled out of his mouth. “Man, I’m sorry I made you late for your exam and I’m sorry I ran over your bike. I’m sorry I’m probably the worst brother in the world and you’re way better off without me, you know, and I just need you to understand…”
His pause felt epic as his mouth finally caught up with his head and he realized he couldn’t apologize for everything. Drake wanted to make Josh understand that nothing he ever did was meant to hurt him, that that was the last thing Drake ever wanted for Josh.
But 28 pairs of eyes besides Josh’s were staring back at him and it took that split second for Drake to realize how vulnerable he felt and how much he needed to escape from this nightmare that was bleeding into his life.
“…I-I-I just…I’m sorry Josh, I’m sorry.”
--
After School, same day
When the last bell rang for the day, Mindy made a quick stop at her locker before walking in the direction of Mr. Roland’s room for Science Club. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to head over to Drake’s house after Cathy (who’d heard from Craig and Eric, who were telling everyone) had told her about the now infamous Drake Parker Meltdown. She wanted to reach out to him, but maybe it was best if he was by himself. They hadn’t talked since their stupid argument on Saturday; she was contemplating being the bigger person when she saw Cathy running toward her.
“Mindy! I’m glad I caught you!” Cathy exclaimed when they met in the hallway. “Are you leaving yet?”
“No, I have Science Club in a few minutes,” Mindy answered before she noticed how distressed her best friend looked. “Why, is something wrong?”
“I needed to find you,” Cathy said while scanning the hallway. She pulled Mindy into an empty classroom and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I just heard something about Drake that I thought you should know.”
“Cath, I’ve heard like five million different things about Drake all day. What’s wrong now?”
“This is different. And I just want to say up front that I don’t know if it’s true, I’m just repeating what I heard. Don’t shoot the messenger and all that, because I know how you get.”
“If this is supposed to make me feel better, you’re doing a great job,” Mindy replied sarcastically, hoping Cathy would get to the point.
“I’m sorry, just…kinda nervous here. Okay, anyway. So I’m in the bathroom, washing my hands, when Kat McCloud walks in with a couple of her friends and it was hard to not eavesdrop, you know? I missed the beginning of the conversation, but basically Kat is going on and on about how Drake kissed her out of nowhere before Chemistry class a couple days ago and she’s just all “like so devastated” about how he acted in class today and she wondered if it was something she did. Something about a zit and her mirror? I don’t know, I just left to come find you.”
“Drake kissed another girl?” Mindy asked, feeling like her stomach had been sucker punched. “Drake kissed Kat?”
“Wait, just think about this,” Cathy said, trying to be calm for Mindy. “Kat McCloud is an evil, lying girl. You know she is such a drama queen.”
“Why would Drake kiss her?”
“Exactly! It doesn’t make sense, right?”
“No…yes. I don’t know,” Mindy answered as she rubbed her hand over her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m going over to see him. I need to get this straightened out.”
“Wait, what about Josh? What if he’s ditching the club meeting too?” Cathy asked, following her out into the hallway.
“He told me at lunch that he was going,” Mindy shrugged. “Maybe he’s trying to avoid Drake, I don’t know. I’ll call you later, okay?”
--
Parker/Nichols’ House, 20 minutes later
Lying on the couch with the music blasting, Drake just barely heard the knock on his bedroom door. He begrudgingly slid off the sofa and made his way toward the door, not bothering to turn down the music. He didn’t know who to expect, but surprise colored his face when he saw Mindy. They both stood for a moment before she spoke.
“The front door was open.”
Drake nodded, not really caring how she got in. He threw his arms around her neck, happy to see a face that didn’t hate him; it wasn’t long before they were kissing, hotly mouthing at each other’s lips as he pulled her into the room and closed the door behind her.
Her tongue swiped lightly over his bottom lip and Drake thought it was a miracle they didn’t break their ankles while coming down the steps. They crashed soon enough on to the sofa; her bare knees knocking with his flannel covered ones as he felt the sofa cushions on his back soften their fall. She groaned when his lips moved from her mouth, over her jaw line, and started nipping the curve of her neck.
“Drake…” Mindy said softly, but he didn’t stop. She thought maybe the music was too loud and this felt too good, but she had to stop it. “Drake…come on. You’re gonna leave a mark.”
Breaking the connection, she rolled away, walked toward the radio and decisively turned it off in the middle of a raging guitar solo. Silence blanketed the room as they both looked at each other; frustration was built up inside of her and confusion was written all over his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t come over here for…that,” she told him as she straightened out her shirt. He lifted an eyebrow as she continued. “I need to ask you something.”
“Okay,” he answered slowly as she walked over and moved his feet off the couch so she could sit down.
“Drake…did you kiss Kat McCloud?”
He felt blood drain quickly from his cheeks and tried to swallow away his dry mouth before speaking. “What?”
“Cathy overheard her in the bathroom today talking about how you kissed her before class or something? Please tell me it’s not true.”
“Sort of,” Drake said as he cringed on the inside.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that Kat kissed me, okay? We were talking and out of nowhere, she just plants one on me,” he told her apologetically while looking at his hands. When he lifted his head, it was hard to read her expression. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You would say that,” Mindy muttered, all sorts of thoughts racing through her head. “When Cathy told me, I didn’t believe her. I really thought that you’d changed, but I guess it was only a matter of time.”
“Hey, I have changed! Do you know what I’ve given up for you?”
“What you’ve given up for me? What are you trying to say, that I’m holding you back from your potential as a future home wrecker?” she asked, mixture of sarcasm and anger, as she stood up from the couch.
“I didn’t say you were holding me back so quit putting words in my mouth, Mindy.”
“What are you trying to say then, Drake?”
“I don’t know,” Drake admitted as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I’m just saying that I gave up a lot to be with you.”
The room was quiet enough that a pin drop could’ve been heard as Mindy gave him a hard look. “Drake, you are impossible. For somebody who is trying to convince me that they’ve changed, you certainly sound a lot like the old Drake.”
“Wait, hang on a sec-“ he started to say as he stood up to meet her at eye level, but she poked him in the chest with her index finger.
“No, you just hang on a second,” Mindy said sternly. “I know you’re going through a rough time, but I want to make it so crystal clear to you that I did not force you into this relationship.”
“I know, but-“
“I’m sorry about what’s going on with you and Josh, but we could’ve have told him earlier,” she continued and when he looked like he was going to say something, she spoke over him. “Yes, we could have. It would’ve been hard, but we wouldn’t be here right now arguing.
“And one more thing. I’m not mad that you kissed Kat or Kat kissed you, or whatever. But if you’re going to sit there and try to tell me that you’re sorry to be in this relationship, that you’re having second thoughts or whatever, then maybe you shouldn’t be in this relationship.”
He wished he could put a pause on all of this and take some time to figure this whole thing out because he felt like he was spinning way out of control. Anything he tried saying was getting blown out of context and he took a deep breath as she looked at him, waiting for some kind of response.
“I want to be with you,” Drake told her pleadingly as he looked into her angry, brown eyes. He reached for her hand, holding it in his own as his thumb ran over the beads of the bracelet he gave her. Saying the words out loud gave him a little sense of clarity, but it wasn’t enough for her.
“Then start acting like it. Tell Josh. Let’s get everything out into the open.”
“Yeah right, like it’s that easy.”
“It is easy! Look, I heard about Mr. Roland’s class,” Mindy told him. “What’s the worst that could happen if you tell him now?”
He stood there with Mindy’s hand in his own and he couldn’t meet her pleading eyes; he just kept staring at the bracelet and he felt himself shake his head.
“No,” he heard himself saying. “I can’t…I can’t tell him.”
Mindy tore her hand away from his. “What? Why not? Do you want to be the old Drake again?”
“No, no it has nothing to do with that!” he tried explaining as Mindy crossed her arms in front of her chest and narrowed her eyebrows. “Mindy…Josh is everything to me, you know? If I tell him this, he would be out of my life. For good.”
“You don’t know that!” she exclaimed. “Did you ever think that maybe he could be okay with this?” Mindy turned on her heel and made her way around the ping-pong table as she began to walk toward the desk. She picked up a snow globe that was sitting on top of a stack of papers and shook it as she continued. “I’m so sick of this argument Drake. Will he be mad or will he be okay? Just over and over again.”
Drake flopped onto the couch and buried his face in his hands as his head hit the back of the couch. He let out a frustrated groan and dropped his hands when he felt the couch sink next to him; Mindy was there and it was hard to gauge how she was feeling. Probably just as confused as he was.
“Drake, we have to tell him,” Mindy said in a small voice. “We have to. I know it’ll be hard, but I’ll do this with you. Two heads are better than one, right? What do you say?”
He knew what she wanted to hear and he wanted to say it. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but fear laced through him and he couldn’t look at her when he spoke.
“I’m not telling him.” A shaky sigh and he spoke again. “You shouldn’t either.”
When Drake looked at her, it was hard to read her face. He thought that maybe her eyes looked a little glassy and when he thought about reaching for her, she broke eye contact and stood up.
He cringed when the sound of his bedroom door slammed and reverberated in the empty space. Drake stood up and filled the void with music from his stereo, but it didn’t make him feel any better so he flipped the switch to off.
Grabbing a ping-pong paddle and a couple of orange balls, Drake climbed onto the hard, wooden surface of the table and curled his legs toward his chest. The argument was all he could think about and it was driving him crazy as the words replayed over in his head. He thought he was right; he had to be, he definitely knew Josh better than Mindy ever had. Who was she to doubt him? Shouldn’t she just accept the fact that Josh could never find out about this?
Time stretched on as he slowly tortured himself by bouncing the ping-pong ball over and over again. He tried to concentrate on that instead of the niggling feeling that there was a teensy chance that Mindy could be right. He wanted so desperately for her to be wrong, but Drake couldn’t ignore the validity in what she had said. Josh was clearly through with him, why not just come clean?
He kept thinking about that as he bounced the ping-pong ball and he vaguely heard the footsteps of someone entering the room.
“Hey,” Megan said, making her presence known. “Here’s your guitar.”
He heard her footsteps get closer until she was standing near the end where his head was. A light thunk on the table and Drake looked toward her to see that she had propped his guitar up for him. Megan was one of the last people he wanted to see, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to tell her to beat it.
“Thanks.”
“You’re not even going to ask why I took your guitar?” she asked curiously.
“Why’d you take my guitar?”
“I used it to kill a spider,” Megan replied, sounding proud. Any other day or even a half an hour ago, Drake would’ve blown up at her and pushed her out of the room and would’ve spent at least fifteen minutes going over every piece of his guitar. But he didn’t.
Megan, confused by her brother’s attitude, took the guitar off the table and moved it so that it stood properly in its stand. She turned back to face Drake and couldn’t help but ask another question. "Okay, why aren't you freaking out? It's no fun messing with you if you're not gonna to freak out."
“I’m sorry.”
He clearly wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to stick around any longer. “Okay.”
“Hey.”
Megan turned around and saw Drake standing, looking pitiful as he held a ping-pong ball in his hand. “Yeah?”
“Wanna play some ping-pong?”
“Nah. You really don’t wanna put a paddle in my hand.”
Drake figured it was probably a good idea that she turned him down and watched as she made her way out of the bedroom. He walked over to one end of the ping-pong table and listlessly hit a ball to the other side. Watching as it bounced, he hit another ball before realizing how pathetic it was. He turned on his heel and thought that maybe he’d play with his guitar a little when he heard a familiar screech.
Turning, Drake faced the door to see Josh striking a samurai pose in the doorway of their bedroom.
“Mwahaha. We have unfinished business, Young Szechwan,” Josh said, complete with a goofy samurai accent. Drake was stunned to see him, acting as though the past week had never happened. All that Drake could think about was if Josh was picking now to start talking to him, maybe they should talk about everything and maybe he should lay it out on the line. He could practically see the picture of Mindy’s face in his head of how happy she would be; after all, as she had said, what did he have to lose?
“Josh-”
“Wa-Chaa!” Josh exclaimed, interrupting. “You will only address me as Master Monguku.”
The moment they were having, it was nice, Drake realized. That with all their joking aside, Josh was back. Maybe his outburst of a speech had done it to change Josh’s mind; as Drake looked at Josh and saw the best friend, the brother that he missed so much, he knew it would hurt too much to disappoint him again.
For the first time in what felt like days, Drake smiled. Josh smiled back and for a minute, Drake could forget and it felt okay.
“Your words, they are strong,” Drake said, playing along with his own goofy accent. “But your skills are weak!”
“Your foolishness, Young Szechwan, has sealed your fate!”
“Destiny is mine!”
The paddle swung back, Drake served the ball over the net, and he couldn’t have been happier to see Josh serve it right back.
chapter 17 | you really got a hold on me