Who Could Ask For Any More? - Part Six - February
Title: Who Could Ask For Any More?
Part: Six
Word Count: 8,683
Previous Parts: Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five (i) | Part Five (ii)
~
It takes less than half a second for him to hit the ground.
For most people, when something terrible, unexpected and life-altering happens, they either say that everything went into slow-motion, or that everything sped up to the point that the events became almost incomprehensible.
Not for Jesse.
A moment or two passes in which Jesse finds himself frozen to the spot and oddly confused, Andrew isn’t moving. Andrew always moves. Even when he’s relaxed he’s fidgeting, even when he’s asleep he spends the entire night rolling around, but he’s not moving now. This is strange, this weird, this is… scary. He’s just lying there motionless, arms and legs spread out at odd angles, eyes closed, and in the limited light, Jesse watches as a small drop of blood rolls out from underneath the brim of Andrew’s beanie, down onto his cheek.
And then it hits him.
After two seconds of brief, distant confusion, Jesse fall to his knees -into the dirt- and screams. Screams louder than he’s ever screamed before, like he’s dying, like he’s being tortured, like he’s being torn limb from limb and there’s nothing anyone could possibly do to stop it. The sound echoes through the night, bounces off the trees, and remains, ringing hollow in the air in the same way that a bell tolls.
Every cell of his body is shaking and he can’t take his eyes from Andrew, can’t see past the blinding fear to even begin to think of what to do except scream and cry, and somewhere in the midst of all this he sobs out names and digs his hands into the earth to keep himself from falling flat on his face. Emma, Justin, Joe, anyone. Someone has to help, he doesn’t know what to do, he can’t fix this. Then he’s not even screaming out words anymore, just sounds. Helpless, pathetic, dry sobs.
Then there’s the sound of footsteps and the rustling of leaves, and Emma is there, and the others. All of sudden there’s all this noise and yelling and legs running around him, belonging to bodies that he can’t see and Jesse just can’t seem to understand why they aren’t doing anything yet because the longer that Andrew stays like this, the more that Jesse’s world falls apart. Jesse watches as Justin frantically tears his tweed jacket off and throws it over Andrew.
Joe’s arm has found its way around Jesse’s shoulders, trying to pull him away but Jesse won’t budge from Andrew’s side. Then there’s Emma in his face, asking what happened, trying to be calm, to be responsible, but he can tell -even now- that she’s petrified too. She yells at Justin, Armie and Josh, something about getting back to camp, sobering up, hiding the alcohol, just go already - and they’re gone.
Jesse manages to choke out a few words amongst the sobbing, telling Emma to hurry up.
“Please… h-hurry!”
She digs around in her pockets, and fumbles with her cell-phone, dials the number and explains frantically that she needs an ambulance, tells them where she is and that she doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong but she knows that it’s bad, and Jesse’s still crying, gripping the front of Andrew’s coat with one hand, his wrist with the other.
This is the single worst moment of his life.
***
“Here, I brought you this. I figured you’d be needing it.”
Jesse slowly looks up. It’s Joe, standing over him with a paper cup filled with coffee in his hand. He’s backlit by the fluorescent strip lights, so Jesse can’t see all that much of his face. Jesse accepts it gratefully, watches as Joe walks around to the other side of the bed, and sits down in one of those horrible grey hospital chairs, pretty much identical to Jesse’s own. Joe chose to come along to the hospital with Jesse whilst Emma drove the other’s back to school, made sure that they sobered up, and asked the school to call Andrew’s parents.
“He doesn’t look too bad in this light, don’t you think?”
Jesse nods. He hasn’t said a word since they got here five and half hours ago, but Joe continues to talk, and Jesse doesn‘t mind that. It‘s comforting. It’s seven a.m. and neither of them have slept yet. He feels weaker than he’s ever felt in his life, drained in every possible way, like he could fall asleep and not wake up for years. His eyes are dying to close, but he’s forcing himself to stay awake, just in case anything goes wrong.
Jesse can tell, Joe’s just pouring coffee down his throat as a way of being polite, as a way of keeping himself up so that Jesse won’t be alone. Jesse doesn’t say a thing though, he doesn’t tell Joe to take a nap, or to call Emma and have her pick him up. He just lets Joe get on with it, because after all, he’s a distraction. As long as Joe keeps talking, then Jesse only has to focus maybe 99.99% of his attention on Andrew, laying flat on the bed between them, his right leg in a cast, bruises down the length of his arms, a huge bandage on the side of his head.
Using his spare hand, Jesse takes hold of Andrew’s limp one and brings it up to his face, pressing the back of it to his lips and just holding it there. It’s warm. He closes his eyes.
He can hear Joe shifting around in his seat. “Jesse, he’s going to be okay, you know.”
Jesse knows that Joe is right, the Doctor said the same thing himself when he came to find Joe and Jesse in the waiting room a couple of hours earlier to tell them that aside from the broken leg and the small head wound, it was bumps and bruises mostly, nothing that couldn’t be fixed.
“Emma called too, the guys’ll be here soon.”
Jesse doesn’t reply, doesn’t nod, doesn’t move.
“Jesse, say something.” Joe’s voice is thick with fatigue. He looks just how Jesse feels. Eyes red and bloodshot, hair a mess, mud all over his arms and shirt from when he helped the paramedics get Andrew onto the stretcher. So the next few things he says can easily be applied to himself. “I know you’re scared, we’re all scared, but he’s okay. You heard the Doctor, he needs to get as much sleep as he can, so he won’t wake up for a good few hours yet. You don’t have to force yourself to stay here. You need to eat something, get some sleep yourself. I don’t want to make you feel bad, but you look an absolute wreck.”
When Jesse finally does speak, he sounds as though he hasn‘t said a word in years. “I’m not moving until he does.”
From the look on Joe‘s face, it seems that it has become all too apparent to him that Jesse truly means what he‘s just said; he‘s not leaving Andrew‘s side. Joe gets to his feet and moves over towards the door. “You really love him, don’t you?”
Jesse has no idea how Joe managed to form that extremely accurate assumption, perhaps Joe just worked it out in the same way that the others did, maybe Jesse was a little too obvious about it, or quite possibly, after over fifteen years of friendship, Joe is simply able to read Jesse like a book.
“Yeah,” Jesse says, nodding, realising for the first time that he’s in tears. “Yeah I do.”
“Okay, well,“ Joe opens the door -smiling softly- and steps half way through. “I’ll just go outside, wait for the guys to show up, give you some alone time.”
Jesse’s eyes remain on the door until it closes, and then everything becomes almost too quiet. Before, it was Joe sipping coffee every couple of seconds, his constant moving around in his chair, and his futile attempt to get a conversation going. Now, it’s just the oddly reassuring beep of the heart monitor and Andrew’s deep breathing.
For a moment, Jesse simply looks about the room; the white walls, green linoleum flooring, the fact that everything is so clean and bright and that Andrew doesn’t belong here at all because it’s not cluttered enough, or colourful enough, or loud enough like him. More than anything, Jesse just wants to get him out of here and back into a place where he belongs, even if he has to pick him up and carry him back to his dorm himself.
Placing down his now lukewarm cup of coffee, Jesse frees up a second hand to hold Andrew’s once he‘s wiped his eyes. He adjusts himself so that he’s kneeling in his chair, rests his elbows on the side of the bed and leans over, so that he’s mere inches away from Andrew’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse whispers. Then, despite himself, he smiles just the tiniest bit through the tears that are still coming. “I know what you’d say if you were actually awake to hear me say that. You’d say,” -and for the first time in Andrew’s presence, Jesse puts on an English accent- “Jess, stop being silly, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, this wasn’t your fault.”
“I know it wasn’t really my fault,” he continues quietly, “but I can’t help but think that it is. Maybe if I hadn’t have had a few drinks I wouldn’t have pissed you off, I wouldn’t have thrown up, you wouldn’t have followed me, we wouldn’t have argued and you wouldn’t have climbed that tree. It was an accident though. No one‘s fault. Maybe I should finally take your advice and stop putting myself down. Maybe I should talk about something else, yeah?”
It feels awful for Jesse, speaking to Andrew and not having him say a single word back. He’s so used to Andrew initiating the conversation, answering things too quickly, constantly speaking.
“Your hair’s all flat, that‘s a first,” Jesse reaches out and -with great care around the bandage on the side of his head- runs his fingers through the front of Andrew‘s hair in the hope of sculpting it back into its usual state of organised chaos. It doesn‘t work, it just falls flat again, making him look oddly younger. Jesse smiles wistfully, tilting his head. “Well, I‘m no Justin.”
Jesse can’t see himself, there’s no mirror, no window in front of him, no reflective surface of any sort, but he knows that he’s looking down at Andrew’s stupid, gorgeous, perfect face with all the love in the world. This was how Andrew had looked at Jesse right before he decided to go and climb that tree like the beautiful idiot that he is. It’s nice to be on the receiving end of a look like this, but sometimes -and Jesse can agree- it’s just nice to be the one doing the looking.
“You want to know something?” Jesse, rubbing his thumbs across the back of Andrew’s hand, waits a moment or two, just in case he wakes up and decides to answer. He doesn’t, but Jesse continues on, whispering as if he’s telling a secret. “Ever since I first met you, since the moment I saw you running down the hall at me back in September, I always thought -no, knew- that you were the type of person that could recover from anything… I always figured that you’d be the one to bounce back.”
The tears are still coming, and one falls, landing on Andrew’s cheek. Jesse looks at it for a moment, and thinks about maybe wiping it off, but instead, he leans down, presses his lips to Andrew’s face, and gently kisses it away.
“Hurry up and bounce back,“ Jesse sniffs, speaking into Andrew‘s skin. “Bounce back.”
***
When Jesse wakes up, he feels something touching him, someone touching him, their hand in his hair. He hasn’t gotten around to opening his eyes yet, because he’s scared, worried that if he does open them, that he’ll find that he’s still in that hospital room next to a motionless Andrew, willing him to wake up too. And then, someone speaks.
“Jess?” It‘s a croaky, dry, though oddly attractive voice, with an accent. “Jess, you awake?”
A stupidly English accent.
Jesse’s eyes fly open with impeccable speed, and his head snaps up. He‘d fallen asleep with his head on the edge of Andrew‘s bed, so he guesses that he‘s probably got a red ridge down the side of his face. He finds Andrew looking down at him, propped up against way too many pillows. He‘s smiling, it looks as though he’s trying his best to cover up the fact that he’s in pain. At the same time, however, he looks happy -despite the scratches all over the right side of his face amongst everything else.
“Hello, you.”
“You’re awake?” Jesse asks stupidly, relief washing over him in waves. Not exactly what he’d planned to say when he found Andrew awake, but this Jesse we’re talking about, and nothing ever goes according to plan in his life.
“Yeah, and so are you…” Andrew smirks playfully. The scrunching up of his right cheek makes the bruising on his face appear worsened “…finally. The others have already been and gone. They got here at around eight this morning, but they didn’t want to wake you, they’re coming back a bit later though, and my parents will be turning up some time soon which will be… interesting, to say the least.”
“Oh God, what are you gonna say?”
“God knows, I’m just gonna sit back and let my Dad yell and hope it doesn‘t make my headache any worse, it’s the best way of dealing with him.”
Andrew quickly changes the subject, and Jesse knows straight away that that’s just his way of pretending that he’s not going to get yelled at within the next few hours, that his Dad isn’t going to come storming in, demanding to know why he was off campus, in the woods, underage drinking, climbing trees and getting hurt instead of spending his weekend in practicing math problems. Jesse wishes, more than anything, that he could prevent that from happening, but there’s nothing he can do. At least, he thinks, he can be there afterwards, to hopefully console Andrew and make him feel a little better.
“Anyway, Joe said you were exhausted. Why did you force yourself awake like that?”
Jesse looks down at the table at the end of Andrew’s bed, littered with flowers, candy, ’Get Well’ cards, Emma’s portable stereo playing Jesse’s mix CD at a low level, and -fucking hell- grapes. Those probably came from Justin.
He turns back to Andrew. “Oh God, what time is it?”
“Two.”
Jesse gapes, voice sliding up a couple of octaves. “In the afternoon?”
“Yeah,” Andrew shifts around to get into a more comfortable position. He winces as he attempts to slide his broken leg a couple of inches over. “I guess all the daylight gave it away, huh?”
“I can’t believe I slept that long, you should have woken me, I- that doesn’t even matter! How are you?” Jesse grabs Andrew’s hand, looking him right in the eye with all the sincerity in the world. “Are you feeling okay? Are you in pain or anything like that?”
“Jess, stop. I’m fine,” Andrew squeezes his hand, and leans back into the pillows, “a bit achy, and ever so slightly hung-over, and in a cast but otherwise I’m okay. No need to worry, I’m still in one piece.”
“Just,” Jesse says with no trace of humour in his voice. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’ve never been more scared in my whole life.”
“Well, like I said, I’m alright.” Andrew smiles fondly. “What about you?”
And Jesse smiles back. “I’m fine now."
“Good.” Andrew’s eyes shift to the front of the room. “Hey, do you reckon you could grab my coat off the back of the door?”
“Yeah, sure.” Jesse stands, maybe Andrew just wants to cover up that god-awful hospital gown, or maybe he genuinely needs it. Before Jesse has moved even a few feet, he turns. “Why? Are you cold? Because I can get a nurse and ask for extra blan-”
“I’m not cold, I just need you to get something out of the pocket. I’d do it myself, but,” Andrew gestures to his leg, “you know?”
Jesse nods, and takes Andrew’s mud-covered, and slightly ripped parka down from the hook on the back of the door. Fishing around in the left pocket, he finds nothing, and moves to the other. Ah, of course.
“A couple of squished Three Musketeer’s bars?” Jesse stares down at the two of them, trying his best not to laugh as he hangs the coat back up.
“They‘re-”
Jesse looks up, cuts him off, “Armie’s?”
Andrew rolls his eyes playfully. “Of course. Did you see what he got me? It‘s hilarious.” He lifts an arm to point at the bonsai tree sat on his bedside table with a G.I. Joe doll wedged into its branches and a note attached to it that reads: “Try not to fall out of this one!”
“That’s terrible,” Jesse says bluntly, face straight.
“That’s Armie, that’s how he deals with things, he makes jokes,” Andrew chuckles. “I think it‘s quite funny actually. Now, could you get your pretty little self back over here and give me that chocolate? I haven’t eaten yet, and I’d bet my right leg that you haven’t either.”
Jesse eyes Andrew‘s cast dubiously. “I don’t want your right leg, not in this condition.”
“See, you can make jokes too.”
After Jesse walks around to the other side of the bed, he pokes at the head of the doll, and says, “Is that action figure supposed to be you?”
“Yes, couldn’t you tell? We look so alike. We both have such chiselled good looks.”
Jesse scrunches his face up and tilts his head as if to say “Well…” looking back and forth between Andrew and G.I. Joe. Andrew reaches out and attempts to shove Jesse in the chest, except there’s not that much force behind it.
“I can’t believe you’re still stealing his candy when he went to the effort of buying you such a nice bonsai,” Jesse says like a mother chastising a child, shaking his head with derision.
“I stole it before he bought the bonsai. I was going to share those with you before we went to sleep in the tent. A ‘just after midnight’ snack. Except that didn’t happen.”
Jesse’s stomach sinks a little at that, and his face falls, but he tries his best to keep Andrew from noticing by looking down, concentrating on peeling the squished, slightly melted chocolate out of it’s wrapper. He lifts a hand to feed it to Andrew.
The latter does a damn good impression of Jesse, smirking as he take the Three Musketeers bar from his hand. “I can feed myself thank you.” As he chews, he rolls his eyes with pleasure, and says. “Fuck, that’s good!”
Jesse chooses to take smaller bites out of his, as opposed to shoving the whole thing in his mouth just as Andrew had done. “They haven’t given you anything to eat yet?”
Andrew spends a further fifteen seconds chewing and swallowing before answering, “They offered, but since your head was there they couldn’t rest the tray on the bed, so I said I’d wait.”
“I told you, you should have woken me.”
“Well, I didn’t want to. So there.”
All goes silent for a moment, not an awkward way, but in a ‘I’m so comfortable around this person that we could say nothing and still have a good time’ kind of way. Though, despite the fact that everything is relatively okay, that Andrew’s alive and well, Jesse can’t help but feel… kind of confused. This conversation he and Andrew had just had, it isn’t exactly the type of conversation he’d imagined the two of them having at this point. He figured, during the few hours before he’d unwillingly fallen asleep, that they’d have a long, serious talk about everything that had been said before Andrew got hurt.
Jesse almost chokes on a mouthful of chocolate. Jesus, what if Andrew didn’t actually mean what he said, about loving Jesse? What if it was just some stupid drunk thing? What if Jesse totally misread it? Even worse, what if Andrew doesn’t even remember saying it? Oh God.
Jesse swallows and decides that he might as well ask. Fuck the nerves and the worry, because he and Andrew probably wouldn’t even be here right now if they had have just been open with one another from day one, and Jesse reckons that things will only get worse if he doesn’t just go ahead and say something.
“Did you mean it?”
Andrew looks up. “Mean what?” he asks brightly.
“What you said, before you went all Tarzan on me.” Jesse sits, and finds himself staring down at his hands, one of which is picking at a scratch on the arm of the chair. He feels his cheeks fill with blood, heat up, preparing for the impending embarrassment and loss of breath in the worst way possible. “What you said about… you know-”
“Loving you?”
The way he said it -so calmly, so blasé, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like it shouldn’t even be questioned- that gives Jesse hope. He remembered.
“…yeah,” Jesse bites his lip.
Andrew‘s eyes soften, and he does this ridiculously adorable half-pout-half-smile thing, as he says the five words Jesse had been silently praying he’d say. “Of course I meant it.”
“Could you, uh…” After all these months with Andrew, Jesse has found that his weird stuttering, stumbling over his words thing had lessoned somewhat, but now it‘s back. “Could you, uh, maybe, you know, say it a-again?”
Andrew smiles until the corners of his eyes crinkle up. “I love you, Jesse.”
“I love you,” Jesse lets out one breathy laugh of disbelief at what he’s just been told. This is one of those moments where an entire marching band needs to come walking in blasting a hit love song from a well known musical, followed by a brightly dressed gospel choir, dancing around and yelling ’Hallelujah’ over and over again. He shakes his head and bites his lip to keep himself from smiling too much, before saying, “I mean… I mean I love you too.”
“Stand up,” Andrew commands, still grinning. He grabs the front of Jesse’s shirt (the one he’s been wearing since sometime yesterday morning) and gently tugs. “Come closer."
Jesse giggles a little as he stumbles forward. “Why?”
“Just do it,” Andrew says, he pulls harder, laughing too. “Closer.”
With one final tug from Andrew, Jesse finds himself less than an inch away from his face, his… lips. Andrew’s eyes scan downward, staring down at Jesse’s mouth, and, before Jesse can even begin to process what he knows is coming -before his heart can even think about speeding up as a result of all the excitement, happiness, and adrenalin- Andrew’s done it.
He’s kissing him.
This is… this is better than anything Jesse could have imagined or fantasised about -and Jesse has spent a substantial amount of time going over this moment in his head. The kiss is so firm, yet Andrew’s mouth is soft and inviting and Jesse thinks, through a mildly lustful haze, that he could do this forever. Frantically, he uses both hands to grab Andrew’s wrist -the one belonging to the arm that’s still gripping onto the front of his shirt- and kisses him back, hoping to God that this feels as life-changingly perfect for Andrew as it does for him.
They separate with a cartoonish popping sound, Andrew stares up at Jesse‘s flushed, grinning face, and says, “Wow.”
Jesse swallows, trying to catch his breath whilst simultaneously fighting back the urge to squeal like a twelve year old girl at an Aaron Carter concert, “…yeah.”
“I’ve never kissed a boy before,” Andrew says, voice airy, searching Jesse’s face with his eyes.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Jesse admits sheepishly.
“Well, you’re very good at it.”
Then, like a pin plunged into a balloon, a nurse abruptly enters the room and ruins everything. “Andrew, your parents are here.”
Great.
***
Andrew clearly got his hair and eye colour from his mother, along with his warmth and general kind, loving disposition, but he’s definitely got his height and mouth from his dad. When they first enter, they act as though Jesse isn’t even there. Mrs. Garfield takes Andrew’s face in her hands, cries and asks if her baby is okay. Andrew has to repeat “Mum, I’m fine, really,” over and over again before it finally sinks in.
Jesse doesn’t judge, that’s how mothers are supposed to act, that’s how his own mother would have acted if it had’ve been him in the hospital bed.
Jesse takes a few steps back and stands awkwardly in the corner of the room whilst Andrew’s mother dotes and fumbles over him, whilst his father -in a sharp business suit and glasses- remains stood behind her, staring at his son like he’s just committed a crime or something equally as awful. Though, despite the look on the rest of his face, his eyes do give away to the fact that he‘s worried too. He doesn’t notice Jesse scrutinising him. He looks like a man who’s spent years swimming against the current, working too hard for his own good, like his life has revolved around building up, from scratch, a better life for these two crazy people in front of him.
It’s then that Jesse understands, that this man has pushed and pushed and pushed his son so that he doesn’t have to go through what he’s been through. Andrew’s dad looks as though he’s had his share of shitty jobs and rejections, which is why he looks so world-weary and battered. Andrew had said a couple of months back that his mother never worked, preferring to stay at home, looking after Andrew and the house. Andrew’s dad earned the money, kept them fed, watered, in a nice house, made sure that they had anything they wanted, Andrew said that himself.
So, whilst he may not have gone about it in the best way possible -an anti-hero of sorts- Jesse gets that Mr. Garfield just wants his son to be the best that he can be, so that he never has to struggle. He loves Andrew in his own way, Jesse supposes.
It’s then that he steps forward. “I, for one, would like to know just what you thought you were doing.”
And here comes the lecture that Andrew had predicted, except Andrew had gotten one thing wrong, Mr. Garfield isn’t yelling, he sounds nothing but concerned.
“Darling, just leave him for a bit, he’s not well,” Andrew’s mother says softly, touching her husband’s arm.
“Well it’s his own his fault, is it not?
Andrew rolls his eyes, and speaks, voice stern. “Dad, I was having fun. That’s what people my age are supposed to do every now and then.”
“Well, ‘having fun‘, as you call it, is what got you in here in the first place, having fun is not going to get you very far in li-” Andrew’s dad stops dead in his tracks as he inadvertently spots Jesse in the corner “-who’s this?”
“Uh, this is Jesse. He’s my…” Andrew looks at Jesse worriedly, it’s clear that he’s unsure about to how to end that sentence, they haven’t had ‘the conversation’ yet.
Jesse understands, smiles warmly, and chooses to make this situation as easy as possible. Andrew can explain things later. Hell, Jesse doesn’t even know if Andrew has come out to his parents yet. He steps forward. “I’m a friend.”
“A very close friend,” Andrew confirms, looking at his parents. He turns back to Jesse and mouths ‘thank you’.
Andrew’s mother comes running round the bed and grabs Jesse‘s hands, “Oh, hello! Are you the one that called the ambulance? Have you been here all this time? Are you the one that…” she sniffs as if she’s about to start crying again… “saved him?”
“Mum, I wasn’t going to die or anything,” Andrew pipes up.
“Well, I didn’t call the ambulance our friend, Emma, did. I came with Andrew though, and I’ve been here as long as he has.”
“Oh Sweetheart! I can’t thank you enough for staying with him, if it weren’t for you he would have been here all alone!“ She pulls him into a hug. Yeah, Andrew definitely got his affectionate side from her. “Really, that was so caring of you.”
Jesse blushes a soft pink. Jesus, this woman is nice. She’s probably the only reason Andrew didn’t grow up to be insane. “It’s no problem at all, I wanted to do it.”
“That’s all well and good,“ Andrew’s dad says loudly, “but can we get back to the matter in hand? The fact that our son was, first of all, off the school campus without permission, drinking alcohol underage, and wound up so intoxicated that he felt the need to climb a tree and severely injure himself.”
Andrew doesn’t yell, but his voice is just as stern as his father’s. He doesn’t even look at him as he says, “It’s not like I fell out of a tree on purpose.”
“Well you shouldn’t have been in one in the first place, let alone drunk.” Mr. Garfield stares hard at his son’s averted eyes. “You should know better. You’re better than that. I thought this school would do you some good, but it clearly hasn‘t. You‘ve changed.”
When he says that, Andrew sits bolt upright, as though he’s just had a bucket of ice cold water thrown over him, like he’s just made the world’s greatest realisation. This is his ‘Eureka!’ moment. His father is still talking, but Andrew doesn’t appear to be listening. His brow is furrowed with what doesn’t appear to be anger or confusion, but with sadness and regret, as though he’s just figured out that he’s done something terrible. It makes Jesse’s heart ache, especially when you consider the fact that they had their first kiss only minutes ago, and now this.
Andrew speaks, his voice rueful, cutting his father off. “Jess, would you mind waiting outside? I don’t want you to have to hear any of this.”
“Oh, okay,” Jesse nods, he understands completely. This is a private, family thing. “Well uh, yeah, I’ll just go and wait outside, I’ll see you later?” With a lot of awkwardness -his speciality- Jesse steps outside into the hallway, and closes the door behind himself.
As he does it, he expects to hear the voices within the room behind him escalate into yelling, except, that doesn’t happen at all. Instead, Jesse finds his friends waiting in the corridor, sat in plastic chairs pushed up against the wall. All of them have showered and got themselves into some fresh, warm clothes, they look a hell of a lot better than Jesse, and he begins to worry that he may have not made the best of impressions on Andrew’s parents -in his torn, mud splattered jeans- but Andrew’s mother seemed to like him, so that’s okay.
Emma looks up once Joe has nudged her, upon seeing Jesse she gets to her feet, dashes over and embraces him. “Hi! Are you okay?”
“Yeah I’m…” he awkwardly wraps his arms around her, he’s never hugged a teenage girl that wasn’t his sister before, he’s getting so much love today “…yeah I’m fine.”
“Hey man,” Armie calls, “Did Bambi steal my Three Musketeer’s Bars?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jesse says, trying not to laugh.
Armie sits back in his seat, nodding. “I knew it!”
“Did I just see his parents go in?“ Joe asks. “We only got here a minute ago.”
“Yeah,” Jesse answers over Emma’s shoulder. “His Dad’s giving him a lecture.”
“Go figure,” Justin says from his seat, rolling his eyes. “The man’s terrible.”
Jesse kind of wants to explain the way in which he saw Andrew’s Dad in there, but he doesn’t, because Justin’s known Andrew for much longer than Jesse, roomed with him for years. He probably knows more about Andrew’s relationship with his father than Jesse does. Jesse’s just happy that Justin appears to be genuinely more worried about Andrew than the fact that his birthday trip was ruined. Though, after all, it was an accident, and Justin’s too good a friend to be selfish about this.
Jesse takes the empty chair beside Armie, but Emma remains standing. “Is his dad yelling?”
“No, he’s okay, he just seems kinda angry because he’s worried, I don’t know.” Jesse shrugs and sits further back in his seat, running his hands through his hair. It feels clumpy and in the need of a good wash. It’s then that he realises that Andrew clearly doesn’t give a fuck about that, about the fact that Jesse is dirty, sleep deprived, in need of brushing his teeth. Andrew kissed him anyway. For a moment, he’d completely forgotten about that, what with all the confusion of Andrew’s parents arriving. Now, it’s all that Jesse can think about, replaying the scene over and over in his mind like a scratched DVD.
“Why are you so smiley all of a sudden?” Armie asks of Jesse, an eyebrow raised.
“Yeah man,” Joe says, reaching a hand out towards Emma, pulling her back to her chair. “You’re, I don’t know… glowing? Is that the word?”
“That’s what you call pregnant ladies,” Emma chuckles fondly.
Jesse casually twists in his seat and grins harder. He planned to tell them about this in a cool, macho, ‘no big deal’ kind of way. Except, he’s handling like… well, like a twelve year old girl at an Aaron Carter concert, something which, as we already know, he wasn’t aiming for. He bounces up and down. “He kissed me!”
It’s like something out of cheesy rom-com, one after the other, all five of his friends sit forward in their chairs and say something along the lines of “Oh my god, really?”, “I can’t believe it!”, “Yay!” or “That’s amazing!” Except Josh, who pokes his head up like a meerkat behind the others -his face the picture of confusion- and says, “Wait, what? Who kissed you?”
“Andrew did!”
“What?” Josh frowns hard. “Why’d he kiss you?”
“Andrew and Jesse have been crushing on each other for months,” Emma quickly explains, she turns back to Jesse, hands balled up into little fists with glee. “How was it?”
“It was so good,” Jesse says, closing his eyes. “Better than good, it was literally the best thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It’s… it’s stuff like this that makes me think that magic truly does exist.”
Joe leans back in his seat, a smug look on his face. “I knew you’d come round.”
Except, no one is really paying attention to his shameless Harry Potter reference, Emma looks like she could cry with happiness, and Josh looks as though the others are speaking in some unknown language that he doesn’t understand.
“I can’t believe he actually did it!” Emma says. “Well, actually I can, because he loves you so much, honey. He told us he was going to do it earlier on, when you were asleep, he said he’d think of a way to get it in once you’d woken up.”
“Did he really?” Jesse asks happily, partly wishing that his body had allowed him to wake up a little earlier.
Josh stands up, staring down at the others. “When? When did he say that?”
“Oh, um…” Armie’s face crumples up, like he’s thinking hard “… that must have been when you went out to pee. Sorry, J-Man.”
The others laugh as Josh huffs, throws his arms up into the air and says, “No one ever tells me anything!”
***
After another thirty minutes or so, after another couple of coffees apiece for each of the guys, Andrew’s parents step out into the hall. He’s a couple a seats away, but Jesse can see Justin stiffen in his peripheral vision, as if the sight of Mr. Garfield alone could piss him off. The others look up expectantly, but don’t say a word. Andrew’s mother looks as though she’s been crying, but she smiles warmly at the teenagers.
Andrew‘s dad, well, he’s wearing the same look that Andrew was before he’d asked Jesse to leave. That look of realisation and regret. He fixes his gaze on Jesse, but doesn‘t quite look him in the eye. “Andrew would like to speak to you alone.”
“Really?” Jesse asks, preparing to stand. “You don’t mind?”
“No Darling, not at all, we’ll just wait out here,” Andrew’s mother says, wiping her eyes with one hand and swinging the other through the air as if to wave everyone’s worry away. So that’s where Andrew got that particular mannerism from. He’s almost too much like his mother.
“Oh okay, thank you so much,” Jesse says gently.
As he gets up and steps back into Andrew‘s room, he hears Mrs. Garfield say, “…oh, are you Emma? The one that called…”
Except, he doesn‘t hear the rest as he closes the door behind himself. “Hey.”
Andrew’s face slowly arranges itself into a closed mouth smile, as though he hasn’t seen Jesse in years. “Get over here,” he says simply.
Jesse does as he’s told, and within moments finds himself back at Andrew’s bedside. The latter places his hands down on either side of himself, pushes up -winces with having to move his leg- and plants a soft, second kiss squarely on Jesse’s lips. It’s completely different from the first, which was full of movement, heated and little rushed. This is gentle, loving and still. Yeah, Jesse soon realises that a feeling like this one -heart pumping, butterflies in the stomach, and all the other cheesy clichés you can think of to describe it- this will never lessen with familiarity. It will always feel as amazing as it does now.
Andrew pulls back, looks Jesse right in the eye.
“What was that for?” Jesse asks.
“I’m so sorry.” Andrew replies quietly. He closes his eyes as he allows himself to drop back into his sitting position. “I know I apologised to you yesterday, but I was drunk. I just want to say sorry when I’m sober, so you know for absolute sure that I mean it.”
“I knew that you meant it anyway,” Jesse says, smiling sincerely. “I could just tell.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m still gonna say this.” Andrew opens his eyes once more, and looks Jesse dead in the face. “I’m so sorry for how I’ve treated you over the last few months.”
“You ha-”
“Just let me finish. I mean that I’m sorry for being so controlling, and trying to get you to continue to be a version of yourself that you didn’t really like all that much. I should have seen that you weren’t happy, and just let you do whatever it was that you needed to do in order to make yourself happy, because that‘s what you‘re supposed to do when you care about someone.” Andrew turns away as if disgusted with himself.
Jesse reaches a hand out to touch Andrew‘s face -God, he‘s been dying to do that for so long- makes Andrew look at him. He speaks softly. “I am happy now.”
“I know, but a couple of months ago, when I was just realising how perfect and amazing and adorable you are, I…” Andrew’s hands are flailing about all over the place, as if he knows exactly what he wants to say, but he’s unsure about how to say it “…I should have understood that any change that you chose to make to yourself would only result in a good change because you were the one making the change, like, you can only get better. You’re perfect regardless of how you dress, what you watch on TV, the music you listen to. I get that now, and I’m sorry for ever thinking differently. Does that make sense?”
“Kinda. You used the word ‘change‘ way too many times there.” Jesse chuckles just the tiniest bit, and leans down so that he‘s right on Andrew‘s eye level. He still has a hand on his face. “Listen, we don’t have to go over all of this again. We spoke about this last night. It’s okay. Stop worrying, I can see that you’re stressing yourself out, and you don’t need that right now.
Andrew shakes his head, looking like he might burst into tears at any second. “I’m so sorry, Jesse.”
“I know.”
“It’s just, what my dad said to me earlier, it just made me think. What he’s done to me, forcing me into doing things, making sure that I never do anything unless it’s something that he approves of, that’s… well, it’s kind of what I’ve been doing to you, isn’t it?”
Jesse leans back from Andrew‘s face, smiling softly, hoping that it comes across as comforting. “You weren’t that bad.”
“No, I was. With the way my dad’s treated me, I’ve grown up loving him, sure, but I don’t really like him. The things he’s done, I know they’re for my benefit, but they’ve pushed he and I apart. I made sure to tell him that, and he‘s sorry, but it‘s too late. We’re okay now, we‘re never going to have that close Father-Son relationship, not now.”
Ah, so that’s why Andrew’s Dad had looked like that earlier on, like he felt as bad as Andrew does right now. It all makes sense. Jesse listens intently as Andrew continues, watching his face as he speaks.
“I don’t want that for me and you.” All of sudden, Andrew’s face splits into a grin, and his eyes glaze over like he’s recounting a daydream, like he can see it right before him. “I want us to be like, you know, really fucking in love, for always. Holding hands in between classes, pet names, cuddling all the time. I want the others to get annoyed at us when we talk about one another a little too much, or when we kiss in front of them. I want…” Then his face goes back to being serious again, “I want you to really like me as well as love me because those can sometimes be totally different things.”
“Well, I do.” Jesse wants all of that too, like you wouldn‘t believe. Andrew has just described almost every fantasy Jesse’s ever had since he was sixteen. He nods. “At first, yeah, I was annoyed. Unlike your dad though, you’ve seen that what you did was kind of wrong, and you apologised, and I forgive you. It’s okay, it really is.”
Andrew looks down at his hands in his lap for a few seconds, looks back up, and smiles. “Tell me again.”
“I love you, Andrew Garfield. And I like you too… I really fucking like you.”
***
“Come on, will you just let me help you?” Jesse says, holding his arms out to catch Andrew if he falls.
Andrew was discharged from hospital earlier today, he spent a couple more days there after the initial fall just so that they could keep an eye on him. Everything’s fine, well, except from the broken leg. He’ll have to keep that cast on for at least another six weeks.
Mr. and Mrs. Garfield picked Jesse up from school earlier today so that they could fetch Andrew from the hospital together and bring him back to school. They all said their goodbyes. Andrew’s mother cried a little more and told him that she loved him. Andrew’s dad simply squeezed his son’s shoulder, shook Jesse’s hand, and told them both to be a little more careful next time with a wry smile on his face. Then they left, Andrew’s dad has an important meeting to get to back in L.A. tomorrow morning.
Now, the main task in hand is to get Andrew back up to his dorm on the third floor, which is proving extremely difficult when you consider the fact that he’s on crutches. Jesse tries to help, but Andrew’s insistent on doing this independently.
“Jesse,” It’s been made all to clear now that Andrew only ever adds on that extra ’e’ when he’s trying to come across as serious. “I’m going to have to do this for the next six weeks, so I think it’s best if I get the practice in as soon as possible. You’re not going to be here to help me every time I need to use the stairs.”
“Fine, but don’t come running to me when you can’t get upstairs to use the bathroom.” Jesse shrugs, taking a couple of steps away from him.
Andrew laughs once, bracing the end of his right crutch against the point when the wall and the top of the first step meet, ready to make his move. “I doubt I’ll be running.”
“You know what I mean.”
Andrew goes to take his first step up, except, before his left foot has even made contact with the floor, he wobbles, slips, and almost falls. He would have hit the ground on his ass if Jesse weren’t stood behind him, ready to catch.
Andrew looks over his shoulder and up and Jesse. “Could you help me please?”
“Yeah, of course,” Jesse grins and helps him back into the upright position.
Jesse throws Andrew’s right arm over his shoulders and takes his crutches in his free hand. Jesse’s two feet serve as a good replacement for Andrew’s right one, whilst his left is functioning perfectly well. Together, and very slowly, they make it up the first flight of stairs. Andrew huffs once they reach the top.
Joe’s stood outside of his and Jesse’s dorm room door, his arm slung around Emma’s waist. She’s smiling like a proud mother, they both are, but Emma’s got tears in her eyes. “You guys are too fucking cute,” she says sweetly.
The pair smile back at her, Jesse replies with a simple, “Yeah, we know,” and they continue on.
“You know, it’s times like these when I wish that my dorm wasn’t this far up,” Andrew says.
“I know,” Jesse replies, helping Andrew to turn so that they can make their way towards the second flight down at the end of the hall. “You are now in possession of the world’s most awkward pair of legs.”
“I know, as if the length wasn’t enough, I had to go and get a fucking cast on one as well.”
They find Armie and Josh on the second floor, as if they’ve been waiting for Andrew and Jesse to arrive. Once they spot them, they break into sarcastic cheers and start clapping like Andrew’s just won a marathon or something. Armie calls out, “Way to go, Bambi!“ Josh pumps his fist and whoops. Yes… whoops.
Andrew playfully gives them the finger over Jesse’s shoulder.
“I feel so completely useless like this,” Andrew pouts as he and Jesse work the third flight of stairs. They very nearly fall a couple of times. “I mean, look at me, I’m wearing sweatpants!” Andrew crinkles his nose in disgust.
Jesse laughs fondly, a little out of breath. “Well, this is what happens when you climb trees whilst drunk like a crazy person.”
Andrew nods ruefully. “This is what I get for living on the edge.”
One final flight of steps to go, Jesse is incredibly thankful for that. Andrew is much heavier than he looks, the added plaster’s probably not helping proceedings either.
“There’s nothing wrong with living on the edge,” Jesse concedes. “Just, next time, remember that you can go near the edge, like maybe ten feet away, but never go over it.”
Andrew and Justin‘s door is now in sight. “Okay, I’ll remember that,” Andrew says.
Once they reach room forty-eight, Jesse unhooks Andrew’s arm from around his shoulders, and rests him against the wall by the door whilst he fishes around in his pocket for Justin’s key -which the Head Prefect had entrusted Jesse with earlier today, seeing as he was going to be out patrolling corridors and whatnot around the time that Andrew was due back.
Jesse gets the door open, turns to Andrew and says, “That’s it now, we’re nearly there, we’re on the home straight!”
“Finally!”
Jesse takes the crutches in before returning back to the hall, grabbing Andrew, and bringing him inside. Carefully, he lowers him down onto his bed, making sure that Andrew’s leg is elevated on the cushion Justin must have positioned earlier on today, there‘s a note left on it, in Justin‘s hand, that says: ‘Make sure he doesn‘t strain himself‘.
“I don‘t plan on straining myself,” Andrew laughs, “that‘s why you‘re here.”
“I thought you needed to learn to do things on your own?” Jesse replies, an eyebrow raised. He takes a seat at the end of the bed, down by Andrew‘s feet.
“Well, that’s all well and good, but I’ve never had a slave before so I guess I’ll just make the most of it whilst I can.”
“I’m certainly not being your slave.” Jesse watches as Andrew giggles a little, then slides back into his pillows, closing his eyes with mild relief. “Comfy?”
“Yes.”
And, Jesse just watches him like that, for a good couple of minutes, studying every tiny part of Andrew, all of the things that Jesse knows so well, off by heart. The old things, the new things, like the healing scratches and bruises on his face and down his arm, they all add up together to make -what Jesse will argue to be- the world’s most perfect human being. Jesse will readily admit, that yes, on occasion he has pinched himself, just to make sure that he isn’t dreaming, that he’s not going to wake up and find himself back in his room in New York, ready to face another day at his old high school, ready to face fucking Abraham.
Except, this is real, and Jesse is going to have to learn to accept that, because Andrew’s his now, and he’s Andrew’s, and there’s nothing he can or even wants to do about it.
Andrew cracks an eye open, as if he can just sense Jesse looking at him. “What?”
“I just love you so much,” Jesse says simply.
“I know,” Andrew closes his eye again, and smiles. “I love you too… and I would come over there and kiss you, except I can’t move very well.”
“I’ll come to you then.”
Jesse throws a leg over both of Andrew’s, so that he’s pretty much straddling him, and -being very careful not to put any weight on him- crawls up his body so that the gap between their faces is so small that it’s almost non-existent. Andrew takes hold of Jesse’s waist and pulls him closer, Jesse can feel his breath on his face. Goosebumps have popped up on the back of his neck, down his spine, all over, enjoying Andrew‘s touch far too much. Jesus, this is something that he’d spent the nights when he couldn’t sleep fantasising about, and now it’s reality and that’s… mind blowing.
Taking the lead for once, Jesse leans down, and kisses Andrew full on the lips, thinking to himself that if he could spend the rest of his life doing only one thing, it would be this.
“I have the best boyfriend in the world,” Andrew whispers when they finally part.
If it were a biological possibility, then Jesse’s heart would have stopped right there.
“So this is it then, it’s official? We’re together, a couple…” he can barely speak for smiling, the tip of his nose brushing against Andrew‘s “…boyfriend, and, well, boyfriend?”
“I think so,” Andrew nods solemnly.
Jesse leans back, tilts his head to the side, grins.
“…and just in time for Valentine’s Day.”
~
Epilogue
Part: Six
Word Count: 8,683
Previous Parts: Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five (i) | Part Five (ii)
~
It takes less than half a second for him to hit the ground.
For most people, when something terrible, unexpected and life-altering happens, they either say that everything went into slow-motion, or that everything sped up to the point that the events became almost incomprehensible.
Not for Jesse.
A moment or two passes in which Jesse finds himself frozen to the spot and oddly confused, Andrew isn’t moving. Andrew always moves. Even when he’s relaxed he’s fidgeting, even when he’s asleep he spends the entire night rolling around, but he’s not moving now. This is strange, this weird, this is… scary. He’s just lying there motionless, arms and legs spread out at odd angles, eyes closed, and in the limited light, Jesse watches as a small drop of blood rolls out from underneath the brim of Andrew’s beanie, down onto his cheek.
And then it hits him.
After two seconds of brief, distant confusion, Jesse fall to his knees -into the dirt- and screams. Screams louder than he’s ever screamed before, like he’s dying, like he’s being tortured, like he’s being torn limb from limb and there’s nothing anyone could possibly do to stop it. The sound echoes through the night, bounces off the trees, and remains, ringing hollow in the air in the same way that a bell tolls.
Every cell of his body is shaking and he can’t take his eyes from Andrew, can’t see past the blinding fear to even begin to think of what to do except scream and cry, and somewhere in the midst of all this he sobs out names and digs his hands into the earth to keep himself from falling flat on his face. Emma, Justin, Joe, anyone. Someone has to help, he doesn’t know what to do, he can’t fix this. Then he’s not even screaming out words anymore, just sounds. Helpless, pathetic, dry sobs.
Then there’s the sound of footsteps and the rustling of leaves, and Emma is there, and the others. All of sudden there’s all this noise and yelling and legs running around him, belonging to bodies that he can’t see and Jesse just can’t seem to understand why they aren’t doing anything yet because the longer that Andrew stays like this, the more that Jesse’s world falls apart. Jesse watches as Justin frantically tears his tweed jacket off and throws it over Andrew.
Joe’s arm has found its way around Jesse’s shoulders, trying to pull him away but Jesse won’t budge from Andrew’s side. Then there’s Emma in his face, asking what happened, trying to be calm, to be responsible, but he can tell -even now- that she’s petrified too. She yells at Justin, Armie and Josh, something about getting back to camp, sobering up, hiding the alcohol, just go already - and they’re gone.
Jesse manages to choke out a few words amongst the sobbing, telling Emma to hurry up.
“Please… h-hurry!”
She digs around in her pockets, and fumbles with her cell-phone, dials the number and explains frantically that she needs an ambulance, tells them where she is and that she doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong but she knows that it’s bad, and Jesse’s still crying, gripping the front of Andrew’s coat with one hand, his wrist with the other.
This is the single worst moment of his life.
***
“Here, I brought you this. I figured you’d be needing it.”
Jesse slowly looks up. It’s Joe, standing over him with a paper cup filled with coffee in his hand. He’s backlit by the fluorescent strip lights, so Jesse can’t see all that much of his face. Jesse accepts it gratefully, watches as Joe walks around to the other side of the bed, and sits down in one of those horrible grey hospital chairs, pretty much identical to Jesse’s own. Joe chose to come along to the hospital with Jesse whilst Emma drove the other’s back to school, made sure that they sobered up, and asked the school to call Andrew’s parents.
“He doesn’t look too bad in this light, don’t you think?”
Jesse nods. He hasn’t said a word since they got here five and half hours ago, but Joe continues to talk, and Jesse doesn‘t mind that. It‘s comforting. It’s seven a.m. and neither of them have slept yet. He feels weaker than he’s ever felt in his life, drained in every possible way, like he could fall asleep and not wake up for years. His eyes are dying to close, but he’s forcing himself to stay awake, just in case anything goes wrong.
Jesse can tell, Joe’s just pouring coffee down his throat as a way of being polite, as a way of keeping himself up so that Jesse won’t be alone. Jesse doesn’t say a thing though, he doesn’t tell Joe to take a nap, or to call Emma and have her pick him up. He just lets Joe get on with it, because after all, he’s a distraction. As long as Joe keeps talking, then Jesse only has to focus maybe 99.99% of his attention on Andrew, laying flat on the bed between them, his right leg in a cast, bruises down the length of his arms, a huge bandage on the side of his head.
Using his spare hand, Jesse takes hold of Andrew’s limp one and brings it up to his face, pressing the back of it to his lips and just holding it there. It’s warm. He closes his eyes.
He can hear Joe shifting around in his seat. “Jesse, he’s going to be okay, you know.”
Jesse knows that Joe is right, the Doctor said the same thing himself when he came to find Joe and Jesse in the waiting room a couple of hours earlier to tell them that aside from the broken leg and the small head wound, it was bumps and bruises mostly, nothing that couldn’t be fixed.
“Emma called too, the guys’ll be here soon.”
Jesse doesn’t reply, doesn’t nod, doesn’t move.
“Jesse, say something.” Joe’s voice is thick with fatigue. He looks just how Jesse feels. Eyes red and bloodshot, hair a mess, mud all over his arms and shirt from when he helped the paramedics get Andrew onto the stretcher. So the next few things he says can easily be applied to himself. “I know you’re scared, we’re all scared, but he’s okay. You heard the Doctor, he needs to get as much sleep as he can, so he won’t wake up for a good few hours yet. You don’t have to force yourself to stay here. You need to eat something, get some sleep yourself. I don’t want to make you feel bad, but you look an absolute wreck.”
When Jesse finally does speak, he sounds as though he hasn‘t said a word in years. “I’m not moving until he does.”
From the look on Joe‘s face, it seems that it has become all too apparent to him that Jesse truly means what he‘s just said; he‘s not leaving Andrew‘s side. Joe gets to his feet and moves over towards the door. “You really love him, don’t you?”
Jesse has no idea how Joe managed to form that extremely accurate assumption, perhaps Joe just worked it out in the same way that the others did, maybe Jesse was a little too obvious about it, or quite possibly, after over fifteen years of friendship, Joe is simply able to read Jesse like a book.
“Yeah,” Jesse says, nodding, realising for the first time that he’s in tears. “Yeah I do.”
“Okay, well,“ Joe opens the door -smiling softly- and steps half way through. “I’ll just go outside, wait for the guys to show up, give you some alone time.”
Jesse’s eyes remain on the door until it closes, and then everything becomes almost too quiet. Before, it was Joe sipping coffee every couple of seconds, his constant moving around in his chair, and his futile attempt to get a conversation going. Now, it’s just the oddly reassuring beep of the heart monitor and Andrew’s deep breathing.
For a moment, Jesse simply looks about the room; the white walls, green linoleum flooring, the fact that everything is so clean and bright and that Andrew doesn’t belong here at all because it’s not cluttered enough, or colourful enough, or loud enough like him. More than anything, Jesse just wants to get him out of here and back into a place where he belongs, even if he has to pick him up and carry him back to his dorm himself.
Placing down his now lukewarm cup of coffee, Jesse frees up a second hand to hold Andrew’s once he‘s wiped his eyes. He adjusts himself so that he’s kneeling in his chair, rests his elbows on the side of the bed and leans over, so that he’s mere inches away from Andrew’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse whispers. Then, despite himself, he smiles just the tiniest bit through the tears that are still coming. “I know what you’d say if you were actually awake to hear me say that. You’d say,” -and for the first time in Andrew’s presence, Jesse puts on an English accent- “Jess, stop being silly, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, this wasn’t your fault.”
“I know it wasn’t really my fault,” he continues quietly, “but I can’t help but think that it is. Maybe if I hadn’t have had a few drinks I wouldn’t have pissed you off, I wouldn’t have thrown up, you wouldn’t have followed me, we wouldn’t have argued and you wouldn’t have climbed that tree. It was an accident though. No one‘s fault. Maybe I should finally take your advice and stop putting myself down. Maybe I should talk about something else, yeah?”
It feels awful for Jesse, speaking to Andrew and not having him say a single word back. He’s so used to Andrew initiating the conversation, answering things too quickly, constantly speaking.
“Your hair’s all flat, that‘s a first,” Jesse reaches out and -with great care around the bandage on the side of his head- runs his fingers through the front of Andrew‘s hair in the hope of sculpting it back into its usual state of organised chaos. It doesn‘t work, it just falls flat again, making him look oddly younger. Jesse smiles wistfully, tilting his head. “Well, I‘m no Justin.”
Jesse can’t see himself, there’s no mirror, no window in front of him, no reflective surface of any sort, but he knows that he’s looking down at Andrew’s stupid, gorgeous, perfect face with all the love in the world. This was how Andrew had looked at Jesse right before he decided to go and climb that tree like the beautiful idiot that he is. It’s nice to be on the receiving end of a look like this, but sometimes -and Jesse can agree- it’s just nice to be the one doing the looking.
“You want to know something?” Jesse, rubbing his thumbs across the back of Andrew’s hand, waits a moment or two, just in case he wakes up and decides to answer. He doesn’t, but Jesse continues on, whispering as if he’s telling a secret. “Ever since I first met you, since the moment I saw you running down the hall at me back in September, I always thought -no, knew- that you were the type of person that could recover from anything… I always figured that you’d be the one to bounce back.”
The tears are still coming, and one falls, landing on Andrew’s cheek. Jesse looks at it for a moment, and thinks about maybe wiping it off, but instead, he leans down, presses his lips to Andrew’s face, and gently kisses it away.
“Hurry up and bounce back,“ Jesse sniffs, speaking into Andrew‘s skin. “Bounce back.”
***
When Jesse wakes up, he feels something touching him, someone touching him, their hand in his hair. He hasn’t gotten around to opening his eyes yet, because he’s scared, worried that if he does open them, that he’ll find that he’s still in that hospital room next to a motionless Andrew, willing him to wake up too. And then, someone speaks.
“Jess?” It‘s a croaky, dry, though oddly attractive voice, with an accent. “Jess, you awake?”
A stupidly English accent.
Jesse’s eyes fly open with impeccable speed, and his head snaps up. He‘d fallen asleep with his head on the edge of Andrew‘s bed, so he guesses that he‘s probably got a red ridge down the side of his face. He finds Andrew looking down at him, propped up against way too many pillows. He‘s smiling, it looks as though he’s trying his best to cover up the fact that he’s in pain. At the same time, however, he looks happy -despite the scratches all over the right side of his face amongst everything else.
“Hello, you.”
“You’re awake?” Jesse asks stupidly, relief washing over him in waves. Not exactly what he’d planned to say when he found Andrew awake, but this Jesse we’re talking about, and nothing ever goes according to plan in his life.
“Yeah, and so are you…” Andrew smirks playfully. The scrunching up of his right cheek makes the bruising on his face appear worsened “…finally. The others have already been and gone. They got here at around eight this morning, but they didn’t want to wake you, they’re coming back a bit later though, and my parents will be turning up some time soon which will be… interesting, to say the least.”
“Oh God, what are you gonna say?”
“God knows, I’m just gonna sit back and let my Dad yell and hope it doesn‘t make my headache any worse, it’s the best way of dealing with him.”
Andrew quickly changes the subject, and Jesse knows straight away that that’s just his way of pretending that he’s not going to get yelled at within the next few hours, that his Dad isn’t going to come storming in, demanding to know why he was off campus, in the woods, underage drinking, climbing trees and getting hurt instead of spending his weekend in practicing math problems. Jesse wishes, more than anything, that he could prevent that from happening, but there’s nothing he can do. At least, he thinks, he can be there afterwards, to hopefully console Andrew and make him feel a little better.
“Anyway, Joe said you were exhausted. Why did you force yourself awake like that?”
Jesse looks down at the table at the end of Andrew’s bed, littered with flowers, candy, ’Get Well’ cards, Emma’s portable stereo playing Jesse’s mix CD at a low level, and -fucking hell- grapes. Those probably came from Justin.
He turns back to Andrew. “Oh God, what time is it?”
“Two.”
Jesse gapes, voice sliding up a couple of octaves. “In the afternoon?”
“Yeah,” Andrew shifts around to get into a more comfortable position. He winces as he attempts to slide his broken leg a couple of inches over. “I guess all the daylight gave it away, huh?”
“I can’t believe I slept that long, you should have woken me, I- that doesn’t even matter! How are you?” Jesse grabs Andrew’s hand, looking him right in the eye with all the sincerity in the world. “Are you feeling okay? Are you in pain or anything like that?”
“Jess, stop. I’m fine,” Andrew squeezes his hand, and leans back into the pillows, “a bit achy, and ever so slightly hung-over, and in a cast but otherwise I’m okay. No need to worry, I’m still in one piece.”
“Just,” Jesse says with no trace of humour in his voice. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’ve never been more scared in my whole life.”
“Well, like I said, I’m alright.” Andrew smiles fondly. “What about you?”
And Jesse smiles back. “I’m fine now."
“Good.” Andrew’s eyes shift to the front of the room. “Hey, do you reckon you could grab my coat off the back of the door?”
“Yeah, sure.” Jesse stands, maybe Andrew just wants to cover up that god-awful hospital gown, or maybe he genuinely needs it. Before Jesse has moved even a few feet, he turns. “Why? Are you cold? Because I can get a nurse and ask for extra blan-”
“I’m not cold, I just need you to get something out of the pocket. I’d do it myself, but,” Andrew gestures to his leg, “you know?”
Jesse nods, and takes Andrew’s mud-covered, and slightly ripped parka down from the hook on the back of the door. Fishing around in the left pocket, he finds nothing, and moves to the other. Ah, of course.
“A couple of squished Three Musketeer’s bars?” Jesse stares down at the two of them, trying his best not to laugh as he hangs the coat back up.
“They‘re-”
Jesse looks up, cuts him off, “Armie’s?”
Andrew rolls his eyes playfully. “Of course. Did you see what he got me? It‘s hilarious.” He lifts an arm to point at the bonsai tree sat on his bedside table with a G.I. Joe doll wedged into its branches and a note attached to it that reads: “Try not to fall out of this one!”
“That’s terrible,” Jesse says bluntly, face straight.
“That’s Armie, that’s how he deals with things, he makes jokes,” Andrew chuckles. “I think it‘s quite funny actually. Now, could you get your pretty little self back over here and give me that chocolate? I haven’t eaten yet, and I’d bet my right leg that you haven’t either.”
Jesse eyes Andrew‘s cast dubiously. “I don’t want your right leg, not in this condition.”
“See, you can make jokes too.”
After Jesse walks around to the other side of the bed, he pokes at the head of the doll, and says, “Is that action figure supposed to be you?”
“Yes, couldn’t you tell? We look so alike. We both have such chiselled good looks.”
Jesse scrunches his face up and tilts his head as if to say “Well…” looking back and forth between Andrew and G.I. Joe. Andrew reaches out and attempts to shove Jesse in the chest, except there’s not that much force behind it.
“I can’t believe you’re still stealing his candy when he went to the effort of buying you such a nice bonsai,” Jesse says like a mother chastising a child, shaking his head with derision.
“I stole it before he bought the bonsai. I was going to share those with you before we went to sleep in the tent. A ‘just after midnight’ snack. Except that didn’t happen.”
Jesse’s stomach sinks a little at that, and his face falls, but he tries his best to keep Andrew from noticing by looking down, concentrating on peeling the squished, slightly melted chocolate out of it’s wrapper. He lifts a hand to feed it to Andrew.
The latter does a damn good impression of Jesse, smirking as he take the Three Musketeers bar from his hand. “I can feed myself thank you.” As he chews, he rolls his eyes with pleasure, and says. “Fuck, that’s good!”
Jesse chooses to take smaller bites out of his, as opposed to shoving the whole thing in his mouth just as Andrew had done. “They haven’t given you anything to eat yet?”
Andrew spends a further fifteen seconds chewing and swallowing before answering, “They offered, but since your head was there they couldn’t rest the tray on the bed, so I said I’d wait.”
“I told you, you should have woken me.”
“Well, I didn’t want to. So there.”
All goes silent for a moment, not an awkward way, but in a ‘I’m so comfortable around this person that we could say nothing and still have a good time’ kind of way. Though, despite the fact that everything is relatively okay, that Andrew’s alive and well, Jesse can’t help but feel… kind of confused. This conversation he and Andrew had just had, it isn’t exactly the type of conversation he’d imagined the two of them having at this point. He figured, during the few hours before he’d unwillingly fallen asleep, that they’d have a long, serious talk about everything that had been said before Andrew got hurt.
Jesse almost chokes on a mouthful of chocolate. Jesus, what if Andrew didn’t actually mean what he said, about loving Jesse? What if it was just some stupid drunk thing? What if Jesse totally misread it? Even worse, what if Andrew doesn’t even remember saying it? Oh God.
Jesse swallows and decides that he might as well ask. Fuck the nerves and the worry, because he and Andrew probably wouldn’t even be here right now if they had have just been open with one another from day one, and Jesse reckons that things will only get worse if he doesn’t just go ahead and say something.
“Did you mean it?”
Andrew looks up. “Mean what?” he asks brightly.
“What you said, before you went all Tarzan on me.” Jesse sits, and finds himself staring down at his hands, one of which is picking at a scratch on the arm of the chair. He feels his cheeks fill with blood, heat up, preparing for the impending embarrassment and loss of breath in the worst way possible. “What you said about… you know-”
“Loving you?”
The way he said it -so calmly, so blasé, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like it shouldn’t even be questioned- that gives Jesse hope. He remembered.
“…yeah,” Jesse bites his lip.
Andrew‘s eyes soften, and he does this ridiculously adorable half-pout-half-smile thing, as he says the five words Jesse had been silently praying he’d say. “Of course I meant it.”
“Could you, uh…” After all these months with Andrew, Jesse has found that his weird stuttering, stumbling over his words thing had lessoned somewhat, but now it‘s back. “Could you, uh, maybe, you know, say it a-again?”
Andrew smiles until the corners of his eyes crinkle up. “I love you, Jesse.”
“I love you,” Jesse lets out one breathy laugh of disbelief at what he’s just been told. This is one of those moments where an entire marching band needs to come walking in blasting a hit love song from a well known musical, followed by a brightly dressed gospel choir, dancing around and yelling ’Hallelujah’ over and over again. He shakes his head and bites his lip to keep himself from smiling too much, before saying, “I mean… I mean I love you too.”
“Stand up,” Andrew commands, still grinning. He grabs the front of Jesse’s shirt (the one he’s been wearing since sometime yesterday morning) and gently tugs. “Come closer."
Jesse giggles a little as he stumbles forward. “Why?”
“Just do it,” Andrew says, he pulls harder, laughing too. “Closer.”
With one final tug from Andrew, Jesse finds himself less than an inch away from his face, his… lips. Andrew’s eyes scan downward, staring down at Jesse’s mouth, and, before Jesse can even begin to process what he knows is coming -before his heart can even think about speeding up as a result of all the excitement, happiness, and adrenalin- Andrew’s done it.
He’s kissing him.
This is… this is better than anything Jesse could have imagined or fantasised about -and Jesse has spent a substantial amount of time going over this moment in his head. The kiss is so firm, yet Andrew’s mouth is soft and inviting and Jesse thinks, through a mildly lustful haze, that he could do this forever. Frantically, he uses both hands to grab Andrew’s wrist -the one belonging to the arm that’s still gripping onto the front of his shirt- and kisses him back, hoping to God that this feels as life-changingly perfect for Andrew as it does for him.
They separate with a cartoonish popping sound, Andrew stares up at Jesse‘s flushed, grinning face, and says, “Wow.”
Jesse swallows, trying to catch his breath whilst simultaneously fighting back the urge to squeal like a twelve year old girl at an Aaron Carter concert, “…yeah.”
“I’ve never kissed a boy before,” Andrew says, voice airy, searching Jesse’s face with his eyes.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Jesse admits sheepishly.
“Well, you’re very good at it.”
Then, like a pin plunged into a balloon, a nurse abruptly enters the room and ruins everything. “Andrew, your parents are here.”
Great.
***
Andrew clearly got his hair and eye colour from his mother, along with his warmth and general kind, loving disposition, but he’s definitely got his height and mouth from his dad. When they first enter, they act as though Jesse isn’t even there. Mrs. Garfield takes Andrew’s face in her hands, cries and asks if her baby is okay. Andrew has to repeat “Mum, I’m fine, really,” over and over again before it finally sinks in.
Jesse doesn’t judge, that’s how mothers are supposed to act, that’s how his own mother would have acted if it had’ve been him in the hospital bed.
Jesse takes a few steps back and stands awkwardly in the corner of the room whilst Andrew’s mother dotes and fumbles over him, whilst his father -in a sharp business suit and glasses- remains stood behind her, staring at his son like he’s just committed a crime or something equally as awful. Though, despite the look on the rest of his face, his eyes do give away to the fact that he‘s worried too. He doesn’t notice Jesse scrutinising him. He looks like a man who’s spent years swimming against the current, working too hard for his own good, like his life has revolved around building up, from scratch, a better life for these two crazy people in front of him.
It’s then that Jesse understands, that this man has pushed and pushed and pushed his son so that he doesn’t have to go through what he’s been through. Andrew’s dad looks as though he’s had his share of shitty jobs and rejections, which is why he looks so world-weary and battered. Andrew had said a couple of months back that his mother never worked, preferring to stay at home, looking after Andrew and the house. Andrew’s dad earned the money, kept them fed, watered, in a nice house, made sure that they had anything they wanted, Andrew said that himself.
So, whilst he may not have gone about it in the best way possible -an anti-hero of sorts- Jesse gets that Mr. Garfield just wants his son to be the best that he can be, so that he never has to struggle. He loves Andrew in his own way, Jesse supposes.
It’s then that he steps forward. “I, for one, would like to know just what you thought you were doing.”
And here comes the lecture that Andrew had predicted, except Andrew had gotten one thing wrong, Mr. Garfield isn’t yelling, he sounds nothing but concerned.
“Darling, just leave him for a bit, he’s not well,” Andrew’s mother says softly, touching her husband’s arm.
“Well it’s his own his fault, is it not?
Andrew rolls his eyes, and speaks, voice stern. “Dad, I was having fun. That’s what people my age are supposed to do every now and then.”
“Well, ‘having fun‘, as you call it, is what got you in here in the first place, having fun is not going to get you very far in li-” Andrew’s dad stops dead in his tracks as he inadvertently spots Jesse in the corner “-who’s this?”
“Uh, this is Jesse. He’s my…” Andrew looks at Jesse worriedly, it’s clear that he’s unsure about to how to end that sentence, they haven’t had ‘the conversation’ yet.
Jesse understands, smiles warmly, and chooses to make this situation as easy as possible. Andrew can explain things later. Hell, Jesse doesn’t even know if Andrew has come out to his parents yet. He steps forward. “I’m a friend.”
“A very close friend,” Andrew confirms, looking at his parents. He turns back to Jesse and mouths ‘thank you’.
Andrew’s mother comes running round the bed and grabs Jesse‘s hands, “Oh, hello! Are you the one that called the ambulance? Have you been here all this time? Are you the one that…” she sniffs as if she’s about to start crying again… “saved him?”
“Mum, I wasn’t going to die or anything,” Andrew pipes up.
“Well, I didn’t call the ambulance our friend, Emma, did. I came with Andrew though, and I’ve been here as long as he has.”
“Oh Sweetheart! I can’t thank you enough for staying with him, if it weren’t for you he would have been here all alone!“ She pulls him into a hug. Yeah, Andrew definitely got his affectionate side from her. “Really, that was so caring of you.”
Jesse blushes a soft pink. Jesus, this woman is nice. She’s probably the only reason Andrew didn’t grow up to be insane. “It’s no problem at all, I wanted to do it.”
“That’s all well and good,“ Andrew’s dad says loudly, “but can we get back to the matter in hand? The fact that our son was, first of all, off the school campus without permission, drinking alcohol underage, and wound up so intoxicated that he felt the need to climb a tree and severely injure himself.”
Andrew doesn’t yell, but his voice is just as stern as his father’s. He doesn’t even look at him as he says, “It’s not like I fell out of a tree on purpose.”
“Well you shouldn’t have been in one in the first place, let alone drunk.” Mr. Garfield stares hard at his son’s averted eyes. “You should know better. You’re better than that. I thought this school would do you some good, but it clearly hasn‘t. You‘ve changed.”
When he says that, Andrew sits bolt upright, as though he’s just had a bucket of ice cold water thrown over him, like he’s just made the world’s greatest realisation. This is his ‘Eureka!’ moment. His father is still talking, but Andrew doesn’t appear to be listening. His brow is furrowed with what doesn’t appear to be anger or confusion, but with sadness and regret, as though he’s just figured out that he’s done something terrible. It makes Jesse’s heart ache, especially when you consider the fact that they had their first kiss only minutes ago, and now this.
Andrew speaks, his voice rueful, cutting his father off. “Jess, would you mind waiting outside? I don’t want you to have to hear any of this.”
“Oh, okay,” Jesse nods, he understands completely. This is a private, family thing. “Well uh, yeah, I’ll just go and wait outside, I’ll see you later?” With a lot of awkwardness -his speciality- Jesse steps outside into the hallway, and closes the door behind himself.
As he does it, he expects to hear the voices within the room behind him escalate into yelling, except, that doesn’t happen at all. Instead, Jesse finds his friends waiting in the corridor, sat in plastic chairs pushed up against the wall. All of them have showered and got themselves into some fresh, warm clothes, they look a hell of a lot better than Jesse, and he begins to worry that he may have not made the best of impressions on Andrew’s parents -in his torn, mud splattered jeans- but Andrew’s mother seemed to like him, so that’s okay.
Emma looks up once Joe has nudged her, upon seeing Jesse she gets to her feet, dashes over and embraces him. “Hi! Are you okay?”
“Yeah I’m…” he awkwardly wraps his arms around her, he’s never hugged a teenage girl that wasn’t his sister before, he’s getting so much love today “…yeah I’m fine.”
“Hey man,” Armie calls, “Did Bambi steal my Three Musketeer’s Bars?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jesse says, trying not to laugh.
Armie sits back in his seat, nodding. “I knew it!”
“Did I just see his parents go in?“ Joe asks. “We only got here a minute ago.”
“Yeah,” Jesse answers over Emma’s shoulder. “His Dad’s giving him a lecture.”
“Go figure,” Justin says from his seat, rolling his eyes. “The man’s terrible.”
Jesse kind of wants to explain the way in which he saw Andrew’s Dad in there, but he doesn’t, because Justin’s known Andrew for much longer than Jesse, roomed with him for years. He probably knows more about Andrew’s relationship with his father than Jesse does. Jesse’s just happy that Justin appears to be genuinely more worried about Andrew than the fact that his birthday trip was ruined. Though, after all, it was an accident, and Justin’s too good a friend to be selfish about this.
Jesse takes the empty chair beside Armie, but Emma remains standing. “Is his dad yelling?”
“No, he’s okay, he just seems kinda angry because he’s worried, I don’t know.” Jesse shrugs and sits further back in his seat, running his hands through his hair. It feels clumpy and in the need of a good wash. It’s then that he realises that Andrew clearly doesn’t give a fuck about that, about the fact that Jesse is dirty, sleep deprived, in need of brushing his teeth. Andrew kissed him anyway. For a moment, he’d completely forgotten about that, what with all the confusion of Andrew’s parents arriving. Now, it’s all that Jesse can think about, replaying the scene over and over in his mind like a scratched DVD.
“Why are you so smiley all of a sudden?” Armie asks of Jesse, an eyebrow raised.
“Yeah man,” Joe says, reaching a hand out towards Emma, pulling her back to her chair. “You’re, I don’t know… glowing? Is that the word?”
“That’s what you call pregnant ladies,” Emma chuckles fondly.
Jesse casually twists in his seat and grins harder. He planned to tell them about this in a cool, macho, ‘no big deal’ kind of way. Except, he’s handling like… well, like a twelve year old girl at an Aaron Carter concert, something which, as we already know, he wasn’t aiming for. He bounces up and down. “He kissed me!”
It’s like something out of cheesy rom-com, one after the other, all five of his friends sit forward in their chairs and say something along the lines of “Oh my god, really?”, “I can’t believe it!”, “Yay!” or “That’s amazing!” Except Josh, who pokes his head up like a meerkat behind the others -his face the picture of confusion- and says, “Wait, what? Who kissed you?”
“Andrew did!”
“What?” Josh frowns hard. “Why’d he kiss you?”
“Andrew and Jesse have been crushing on each other for months,” Emma quickly explains, she turns back to Jesse, hands balled up into little fists with glee. “How was it?”
“It was so good,” Jesse says, closing his eyes. “Better than good, it was literally the best thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It’s… it’s stuff like this that makes me think that magic truly does exist.”
Joe leans back in his seat, a smug look on his face. “I knew you’d come round.”
Except, no one is really paying attention to his shameless Harry Potter reference, Emma looks like she could cry with happiness, and Josh looks as though the others are speaking in some unknown language that he doesn’t understand.
“I can’t believe he actually did it!” Emma says. “Well, actually I can, because he loves you so much, honey. He told us he was going to do it earlier on, when you were asleep, he said he’d think of a way to get it in once you’d woken up.”
“Did he really?” Jesse asks happily, partly wishing that his body had allowed him to wake up a little earlier.
Josh stands up, staring down at the others. “When? When did he say that?”
“Oh, um…” Armie’s face crumples up, like he’s thinking hard “… that must have been when you went out to pee. Sorry, J-Man.”
The others laugh as Josh huffs, throws his arms up into the air and says, “No one ever tells me anything!”
***
After another thirty minutes or so, after another couple of coffees apiece for each of the guys, Andrew’s parents step out into the hall. He’s a couple a seats away, but Jesse can see Justin stiffen in his peripheral vision, as if the sight of Mr. Garfield alone could piss him off. The others look up expectantly, but don’t say a word. Andrew’s mother looks as though she’s been crying, but she smiles warmly at the teenagers.
Andrew‘s dad, well, he’s wearing the same look that Andrew was before he’d asked Jesse to leave. That look of realisation and regret. He fixes his gaze on Jesse, but doesn‘t quite look him in the eye. “Andrew would like to speak to you alone.”
“Really?” Jesse asks, preparing to stand. “You don’t mind?”
“No Darling, not at all, we’ll just wait out here,” Andrew’s mother says, wiping her eyes with one hand and swinging the other through the air as if to wave everyone’s worry away. So that’s where Andrew got that particular mannerism from. He’s almost too much like his mother.
“Oh okay, thank you so much,” Jesse says gently.
As he gets up and steps back into Andrew‘s room, he hears Mrs. Garfield say, “…oh, are you Emma? The one that called…”
Except, he doesn‘t hear the rest as he closes the door behind himself. “Hey.”
Andrew’s face slowly arranges itself into a closed mouth smile, as though he hasn’t seen Jesse in years. “Get over here,” he says simply.
Jesse does as he’s told, and within moments finds himself back at Andrew’s bedside. The latter places his hands down on either side of himself, pushes up -winces with having to move his leg- and plants a soft, second kiss squarely on Jesse’s lips. It’s completely different from the first, which was full of movement, heated and little rushed. This is gentle, loving and still. Yeah, Jesse soon realises that a feeling like this one -heart pumping, butterflies in the stomach, and all the other cheesy clichés you can think of to describe it- this will never lessen with familiarity. It will always feel as amazing as it does now.
Andrew pulls back, looks Jesse right in the eye.
“What was that for?” Jesse asks.
“I’m so sorry.” Andrew replies quietly. He closes his eyes as he allows himself to drop back into his sitting position. “I know I apologised to you yesterday, but I was drunk. I just want to say sorry when I’m sober, so you know for absolute sure that I mean it.”
“I knew that you meant it anyway,” Jesse says, smiling sincerely. “I could just tell.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m still gonna say this.” Andrew opens his eyes once more, and looks Jesse dead in the face. “I’m so sorry for how I’ve treated you over the last few months.”
“You ha-”
“Just let me finish. I mean that I’m sorry for being so controlling, and trying to get you to continue to be a version of yourself that you didn’t really like all that much. I should have seen that you weren’t happy, and just let you do whatever it was that you needed to do in order to make yourself happy, because that‘s what you‘re supposed to do when you care about someone.” Andrew turns away as if disgusted with himself.
Jesse reaches a hand out to touch Andrew‘s face -God, he‘s been dying to do that for so long- makes Andrew look at him. He speaks softly. “I am happy now.”
“I know, but a couple of months ago, when I was just realising how perfect and amazing and adorable you are, I…” Andrew’s hands are flailing about all over the place, as if he knows exactly what he wants to say, but he’s unsure about how to say it “…I should have understood that any change that you chose to make to yourself would only result in a good change because you were the one making the change, like, you can only get better. You’re perfect regardless of how you dress, what you watch on TV, the music you listen to. I get that now, and I’m sorry for ever thinking differently. Does that make sense?”
“Kinda. You used the word ‘change‘ way too many times there.” Jesse chuckles just the tiniest bit, and leans down so that he‘s right on Andrew‘s eye level. He still has a hand on his face. “Listen, we don’t have to go over all of this again. We spoke about this last night. It’s okay. Stop worrying, I can see that you’re stressing yourself out, and you don’t need that right now.
Andrew shakes his head, looking like he might burst into tears at any second. “I’m so sorry, Jesse.”
“I know.”
“It’s just, what my dad said to me earlier, it just made me think. What he’s done to me, forcing me into doing things, making sure that I never do anything unless it’s something that he approves of, that’s… well, it’s kind of what I’ve been doing to you, isn’t it?”
Jesse leans back from Andrew‘s face, smiling softly, hoping that it comes across as comforting. “You weren’t that bad.”
“No, I was. With the way my dad’s treated me, I’ve grown up loving him, sure, but I don’t really like him. The things he’s done, I know they’re for my benefit, but they’ve pushed he and I apart. I made sure to tell him that, and he‘s sorry, but it‘s too late. We’re okay now, we‘re never going to have that close Father-Son relationship, not now.”
Ah, so that’s why Andrew’s Dad had looked like that earlier on, like he felt as bad as Andrew does right now. It all makes sense. Jesse listens intently as Andrew continues, watching his face as he speaks.
“I don’t want that for me and you.” All of sudden, Andrew’s face splits into a grin, and his eyes glaze over like he’s recounting a daydream, like he can see it right before him. “I want us to be like, you know, really fucking in love, for always. Holding hands in between classes, pet names, cuddling all the time. I want the others to get annoyed at us when we talk about one another a little too much, or when we kiss in front of them. I want…” Then his face goes back to being serious again, “I want you to really like me as well as love me because those can sometimes be totally different things.”
“Well, I do.” Jesse wants all of that too, like you wouldn‘t believe. Andrew has just described almost every fantasy Jesse’s ever had since he was sixteen. He nods. “At first, yeah, I was annoyed. Unlike your dad though, you’ve seen that what you did was kind of wrong, and you apologised, and I forgive you. It’s okay, it really is.”
Andrew looks down at his hands in his lap for a few seconds, looks back up, and smiles. “Tell me again.”
“I love you, Andrew Garfield. And I like you too… I really fucking like you.”
***
“Come on, will you just let me help you?” Jesse says, holding his arms out to catch Andrew if he falls.
Andrew was discharged from hospital earlier today, he spent a couple more days there after the initial fall just so that they could keep an eye on him. Everything’s fine, well, except from the broken leg. He’ll have to keep that cast on for at least another six weeks.
Mr. and Mrs. Garfield picked Jesse up from school earlier today so that they could fetch Andrew from the hospital together and bring him back to school. They all said their goodbyes. Andrew’s mother cried a little more and told him that she loved him. Andrew’s dad simply squeezed his son’s shoulder, shook Jesse’s hand, and told them both to be a little more careful next time with a wry smile on his face. Then they left, Andrew’s dad has an important meeting to get to back in L.A. tomorrow morning.
Now, the main task in hand is to get Andrew back up to his dorm on the third floor, which is proving extremely difficult when you consider the fact that he’s on crutches. Jesse tries to help, but Andrew’s insistent on doing this independently.
“Jesse,” It’s been made all to clear now that Andrew only ever adds on that extra ’e’ when he’s trying to come across as serious. “I’m going to have to do this for the next six weeks, so I think it’s best if I get the practice in as soon as possible. You’re not going to be here to help me every time I need to use the stairs.”
“Fine, but don’t come running to me when you can’t get upstairs to use the bathroom.” Jesse shrugs, taking a couple of steps away from him.
Andrew laughs once, bracing the end of his right crutch against the point when the wall and the top of the first step meet, ready to make his move. “I doubt I’ll be running.”
“You know what I mean.”
Andrew goes to take his first step up, except, before his left foot has even made contact with the floor, he wobbles, slips, and almost falls. He would have hit the ground on his ass if Jesse weren’t stood behind him, ready to catch.
Andrew looks over his shoulder and up and Jesse. “Could you help me please?”
“Yeah, of course,” Jesse grins and helps him back into the upright position.
Jesse throws Andrew’s right arm over his shoulders and takes his crutches in his free hand. Jesse’s two feet serve as a good replacement for Andrew’s right one, whilst his left is functioning perfectly well. Together, and very slowly, they make it up the first flight of stairs. Andrew huffs once they reach the top.
Joe’s stood outside of his and Jesse’s dorm room door, his arm slung around Emma’s waist. She’s smiling like a proud mother, they both are, but Emma’s got tears in her eyes. “You guys are too fucking cute,” she says sweetly.
The pair smile back at her, Jesse replies with a simple, “Yeah, we know,” and they continue on.
“You know, it’s times like these when I wish that my dorm wasn’t this far up,” Andrew says.
“I know,” Jesse replies, helping Andrew to turn so that they can make their way towards the second flight down at the end of the hall. “You are now in possession of the world’s most awkward pair of legs.”
“I know, as if the length wasn’t enough, I had to go and get a fucking cast on one as well.”
They find Armie and Josh on the second floor, as if they’ve been waiting for Andrew and Jesse to arrive. Once they spot them, they break into sarcastic cheers and start clapping like Andrew’s just won a marathon or something. Armie calls out, “Way to go, Bambi!“ Josh pumps his fist and whoops. Yes… whoops.
Andrew playfully gives them the finger over Jesse’s shoulder.
“I feel so completely useless like this,” Andrew pouts as he and Jesse work the third flight of stairs. They very nearly fall a couple of times. “I mean, look at me, I’m wearing sweatpants!” Andrew crinkles his nose in disgust.
Jesse laughs fondly, a little out of breath. “Well, this is what happens when you climb trees whilst drunk like a crazy person.”
Andrew nods ruefully. “This is what I get for living on the edge.”
One final flight of steps to go, Jesse is incredibly thankful for that. Andrew is much heavier than he looks, the added plaster’s probably not helping proceedings either.
“There’s nothing wrong with living on the edge,” Jesse concedes. “Just, next time, remember that you can go near the edge, like maybe ten feet away, but never go over it.”
Andrew and Justin‘s door is now in sight. “Okay, I’ll remember that,” Andrew says.
Once they reach room forty-eight, Jesse unhooks Andrew’s arm from around his shoulders, and rests him against the wall by the door whilst he fishes around in his pocket for Justin’s key -which the Head Prefect had entrusted Jesse with earlier today, seeing as he was going to be out patrolling corridors and whatnot around the time that Andrew was due back.
Jesse gets the door open, turns to Andrew and says, “That’s it now, we’re nearly there, we’re on the home straight!”
“Finally!”
Jesse takes the crutches in before returning back to the hall, grabbing Andrew, and bringing him inside. Carefully, he lowers him down onto his bed, making sure that Andrew’s leg is elevated on the cushion Justin must have positioned earlier on today, there‘s a note left on it, in Justin‘s hand, that says: ‘Make sure he doesn‘t strain himself‘.
“I don‘t plan on straining myself,” Andrew laughs, “that‘s why you‘re here.”
“I thought you needed to learn to do things on your own?” Jesse replies, an eyebrow raised. He takes a seat at the end of the bed, down by Andrew‘s feet.
“Well, that’s all well and good, but I’ve never had a slave before so I guess I’ll just make the most of it whilst I can.”
“I’m certainly not being your slave.” Jesse watches as Andrew giggles a little, then slides back into his pillows, closing his eyes with mild relief. “Comfy?”
“Yes.”
And, Jesse just watches him like that, for a good couple of minutes, studying every tiny part of Andrew, all of the things that Jesse knows so well, off by heart. The old things, the new things, like the healing scratches and bruises on his face and down his arm, they all add up together to make -what Jesse will argue to be- the world’s most perfect human being. Jesse will readily admit, that yes, on occasion he has pinched himself, just to make sure that he isn’t dreaming, that he’s not going to wake up and find himself back in his room in New York, ready to face another day at his old high school, ready to face fucking Abraham.
Except, this is real, and Jesse is going to have to learn to accept that, because Andrew’s his now, and he’s Andrew’s, and there’s nothing he can or even wants to do about it.
Andrew cracks an eye open, as if he can just sense Jesse looking at him. “What?”
“I just love you so much,” Jesse says simply.
“I know,” Andrew closes his eye again, and smiles. “I love you too… and I would come over there and kiss you, except I can’t move very well.”
“I’ll come to you then.”
Jesse throws a leg over both of Andrew’s, so that he’s pretty much straddling him, and -being very careful not to put any weight on him- crawls up his body so that the gap between their faces is so small that it’s almost non-existent. Andrew takes hold of Jesse’s waist and pulls him closer, Jesse can feel his breath on his face. Goosebumps have popped up on the back of his neck, down his spine, all over, enjoying Andrew‘s touch far too much. Jesus, this is something that he’d spent the nights when he couldn’t sleep fantasising about, and now it’s reality and that’s… mind blowing.
Taking the lead for once, Jesse leans down, and kisses Andrew full on the lips, thinking to himself that if he could spend the rest of his life doing only one thing, it would be this.
“I have the best boyfriend in the world,” Andrew whispers when they finally part.
If it were a biological possibility, then Jesse’s heart would have stopped right there.
“So this is it then, it’s official? We’re together, a couple…” he can barely speak for smiling, the tip of his nose brushing against Andrew‘s “…boyfriend, and, well, boyfriend?”
“I think so,” Andrew nods solemnly.
Jesse leans back, tilts his head to the side, grins.
“…and just in time for Valentine’s Day.”
~
Epilogue