7JERRY
"You're doing it, right?" Erin asks, raising her hand to push a stubborn flick of her short, blonde curly hair behind an incredibly cute ear. It's flying free again almost immediately.
I blink.
"The film club?"
"Of course," she says, grabbing her bag as she stands. Then she's smiling down at me expectantly. Waiting for me to stop staring up at her like a cretin, would be my first guess. "I think it sounds awesome."
"Oh! It does- yeah-" I splutter, in a ridiculous rush to agree. I stand quickly – too quickly, and almost hurtle into her. Erin steps back, eyebrows lifting in time with the corner of her lips as she always does where I'm concerned. My heart drops as I turn around to pick up my own backpack. When I turn back to her, she's walking towards the year elevens, and I'm dying a little inside.
It's nothing new for me, however. Erin is a constant in my life, and therefore, my embarrassing myself in front of her is, too.
I've had a thing for her for two years now.
To call it a thing is likely insulting to me, though. That I'm on the verge of stalking is probably closer to the truth, but as I have control of the descriptions my conscience chooses to use, I refute that theory. Repeatedly.
She's beautiful, and artful, and, were there a perfect human, I believe her name would contain twenty-four letters: Erin Mariella Harwood-Stone.
"My Wednesdays and Thursdays are free too," Erin is saying to one of three of the year elevens who are going to be running our little club. I go to join her, eyes on my shoes, as the guy replies something in a friendly tone. I think he's confirming if we're signing up.
"Yes, of course!" she says as I stalk up to her side, and he says, "Hold on, I'll get you a clipboard." So we stand, like sitting ducks, as he goes and retrieves it from his friend then returns. He looms above me too, when he's close, and I'm so tempted to curse my parents for the freakin' short genes.
"Would you like to write down your names?" he smiles.
Erin wastes no time in collecting the clipboard and pen and writing her name in the next space down. Cursive. Curls. "I'm Erin Harwood-Stone, by the way," she murmurs, corner of her lip lifting upwards. I smile in return at her, a little lost in the appearance of her profile, her small rounded nose, the tint of pink on her cheek, and the brush of light eye-lashes on beautiful skin-
"And... You?"
My head snaps up quickly, and the guy is smiling down at me, eyebrows lifted a little, and I feel my cheeks redden. It feels like he's mocking me.
Even still, I hesitate a smile and take the clipboard offered, letting my head drop as I scribble my name down hurriedly. "Jerry. Jerry West."
"Erin wasn't walking home with you today?" Austin asks. I can feel the heat growing in my cheeks as I offer him a glare that doesn't do much.
"Actually, no. She had some something. I don't even know. She – yeah."
Austin laughs and pulls at a string on my backpack. "Some something."
"Precisely what I was trying to say."
"Dumbass," Austin says, but I think he means it affectionately. We haven't walked home together an awful lot, but it's becoming more and more of a frequent occurrence. Austin and I only became friends last year. It probably had something to do with being in the same Drama, English, Religious Studies and Media class, But the beginning of this year brought with it the realisation that we lived somewhat close to each other, too, and some kind of shaky relationship has been built on those foundations. It's a little weird. I'm not all that comfortable with people unless I'm very close to them, but that seems to be Austin's talent; putting other's at ease. Being friendlyand just generally very effortless to hang around with.
He's a healthy breath of fresh air, really.
"You're doing the film club, right?"
"Yeah, I think so. It sounds alright, to be honest. Don't know if I'm really into film but-"
"But Erin's doing it so-"
My cheeks burn as I turn to glare at him again. "No! No it's not that at all. It just sounds like... Fun."
"Yeah, it does." He hides a grin and then, after a moment, starts to whistle. "You know, the guy doing it? He's my cousin. The taller one?"
"Like the rest of your family?" I mutter darkly. My friend laughs in a way that I wish was cruel but certainly isn't, and I find it difficult not to join in.
"Not at all. Our mother's – sisters – are short-arses. It's our dad's that happen to be tall." At my quirked eyebrow he offers me a tongue. Another one, I might add, because he does this quite a lot. Far too often.
"What are you doing later tonight?"
"Oh, me?" Austin stiffles a yawn and scratches lazily at his neck as he slows his strides into lethargic steps that I suddenly have no problem keeping up with. "Science, science, science! It's such a lil' bitch."
"I know what you mean," I pfft into my fringe as we near Austin's abode.
"And a couple of friends might be coming over. Wanna join?"
"Oh. I don't know. Like who?"
"Dunno. Seth. Jason. Probably Ellie too."
I probably should say yes. I've only got to walk the dog, after all, and check Erin's Facebook. But I shake my head with some kind of regretful expression on my face, and thank him profusely, assuring him that next time I'll try to be free.
We reach his front gate and he salutes me smartly, a twinkle in his eye that tells me he knows exactly what I'm thinking. "See you Tuesday, Westie." I salute him back with a smile I struggle to suppress, and he sticks a tongue out a me from the tall height he stands at.
"See you tomorrow, Austin."
ALEX
"Hey, Alex, will you make me some tea, while you're going?" Kieran asks loudly.
"Yeah, sure." His eyebrows draw close together as he raises his head and removes an earphone.
"What?"
I grin at him. "Yes, I will get you tea. Milk? Sugar?"
"One sugar! No milk."
"One sugar, no milk. Anything for you, Freddie?" The newest member of our Gotta-Fix-The-Gays club, Freddie Lewis, is sitting on the floor by the coffee table of the boy's common room, eyes staring vacantly out of the window. It takes him a moment to register that I've called him before he's turning his head slowly towards me.
Freddie Lewis always looks so broken. Since the first day he arrived, surrounded by girls who turned out to be his sisters. They couldn't have been anything more – he's gay. Like a rest of us. Here to be melded until he's ready to be straightened, and then whatever happens afterwards. His brown eyes seem to whisper secrets that I yearn to understand, but I can't. He won't look into my eyes long enough for me to decipher them. And, even though Toma says it's a stupid problem of mine, I want to fix him. So badly.
He shakes his head.
No, he wouldn't like some tea.
"Coffee?" I try again. His eyes return to gazing out of the window as he shakes his head.
"No, thank you." And that's what our conversations are. He was more responsive this morning, after meeting Everett, but most of the time he keeps to no more than three or four-word sentences, attention elsewhere.
"Do... Do you want to help me make them, though? For Kieran and I?" I'd guessed his answer, but trying hadn't hurt. "Okay... See you guys in a bit..." Kieran looks at me helplessly, and I gesture that he gets off his stupid laptop and attempt to be somewhat social, but he pretends he can't understand and goes back to the screen.
There aren't enough rolling eyes in the world to fully express how exasperating that guy can be.
"I don't suppose you could fetch one for me?" I send Michael, the current boys' common room supervisor a sickly smile and nod once.
"Of course. I'll be back."
He smiles right back at me, but his tiny, beady eyes are set in a searching, omnipresent frown, and, as usual, he sends terrifying chills down my spine as I hurry out of the room.
.. See what I said about all the new peeps!? Totes!
Although, lemme letcha into a secret; in the original Positively Negative, there were to be four main characters; Freddie, Joey, Tom, and Jerry. But, as I was very new into the writing world at the time (and especially the whole writing-as-a-guy shinanz - remember? PN was only originally a means with which to practice a male's point of view... Le lol!) I couldn't deal with so many different male points of view. So I cut Tom and Jerry out, promising to write their story at some other point sometime in the vague future.
That time has come.
Of course, they now have to share their limelight with our two main stars (not to mention some debuting teen sensations..) but they don't mind too much.
Iss'aww comin' togeva!
(If you guys didn't think that in a cockney accent, you are not well enough acquainted with Mr. Noel Fielding. Go!)