Chapter 14: 14: Stupid Little Talks

14: Stupid Little Talks

I could never find the courage to pass that kiss to my mother.

I knew I was a coward. Trying out new things had never been my forte. Even I almost never wanted to try out foods from unknown origin, such as Ikea Meatballs. Gosh, even I shuddered just thinking about it.

But then a kiss from Ryder, to my mother?

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to deliver just the kiss, or down to every excruciating effect that I experienced due to it. I definitely didn’t want my mother to have a massive diarrhea after I kissed her. I knew I didn’t expect my bowels to be reacting so massively, and I mean that literally, to Ryder’s lips.

Oh Cowabonga.

I couldn’t even think of Ryder’s lips without feeling the hackles on my neck stood on ends.

“April,” Quentin called out for me. Not a few seconds later, he broke into my room, wearing a very green, very tribal-y turtle neck that had been trending in instagram for a few months.

“Aaa? Aaa?” he waggled his eyebrows and held his mouth in a frozen smile as he searched for my approval. “What do you think?”

“It’s green?” I said, because that’s what my limited fashion sense could only register to me.

The instant disappointment that he experienced was drawn clearly on his face. “Come on. I know you’re hopeless, but you’re not that hopeless. At least tell me that I look good or something.”

I knew that my brother was good looking. I mean, his hordes of ex-girlfriends and dates and easy life was enough proof. Quentin had a straight, thin nose with thin lips that were of healthy color. His jaw might be a little bit too small for a guy, though, and he was self-conscious about it before. But then as he started to work out and hit the gym and practiced lots and lots of football, his shoulder made up for it.

And it was a good thing, too, that the swell on his jaw had subsided.

“You look good, Quentin,” I smiled. “Who are you trying to impress?”

He waggled his eyebrows even more, as if glad that I asked. “It’s Crystal Ming.”

“The Mathletes Captain?”

“The very one,” Quentin was grinning so hard his lips might split. “That mixed blood does her good, isn’t it? And I heard from some sources that she doesn’t like guys who go full athlete, so I ditched the varsity jacket and went for something geeky instead.” He looked at himself at the mirror again. “Besides, it’s green. Girls like Crystal Ming must care for ‘Go Green’ and all that shit, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said very truthfully. Crystal Ming might be a Mathematic Goddess, but she was far from being the typical nerd with no friends like me, Marcy and Corinne were. She actually participated profusely in the social scene and was as close as being the boys’s own private Lucy Liu with glasses.

“I mean, her name’s Crystal and all that. I think she might care about rocks more.”

“But rocks are part of nature, and nature is green,” Quentin muttered, more to himself than to me. “Shit yeah. I’m bagging her tonight.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say with ‘bagging’, but poo yeah, you will,” I said, meeting his fist with mine.

That seemed to up his morale a little bit. “Even my dorky twin sister gives me the blessing.”

“The ‘dorky’ thing is kind of mean, but yeah,” I nodded.

“Anyway, what about you, sister?” Quentin asked. “Andrew drove you home last week, which was a good progress, but it went downhill after that. He even hasn’t been eating lunch with you lately, and he wouldn’t answer when I asked him why.”

Oh, poor little Andrew!

“Uhm, well… I kind of… avoided him,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Why would you do that?” that didn’t seem to sit well to my brother. I was about to gather my thoughts about Ryder’s precaution regarding Andrew’s skin diseases,  but then before I could even say anything, my brother seemed to draw conclusions on his own. “Did he do anything bad to you?”

That took me aback. Andrew had been anything but ‘bad’ to me. “No..?”

“Is that a question or a statement?” Quentin looked dangerous when he was like this. He never looked like it, but he was actually pretty protective of me. Then again, he was probably the only reason why I didn’t get shredded to bits on my highschool years.“You got home pretty late when Andrew drove you home. Did he bring you somewhere creepy?”

The shady neighborhood with underground fights! “Yes…”

Quentin’s face darkened. “Did something creepy to you?”

“He did get us lost for five hours, and I was pretty sure we were in an entirely different continent back then…”

“What?” Quentin’s mouth twitched in a really weird way. “He what?”

“We got lost,” I confirmed. “For five hours.”

“How the hell did you get  lost from school?” for a few seconds, Quentin’s voice was dripping with incredulity, before then he took a look at me and understanding settled in. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended by it.

“What about GPS?”

“Phone was dead. Andrew’s could only play old school ‘Snake’.”

“Map?”

“Maybe if I were an ant, I’d be able to identify which street is which.”

“Andrew?”

“I’m pretty positive that he doesn’t know the first thing about the way to our home,” I said. “I’m slow, and he’s slow, and both of us were stuck inside a vehicle that belonged in a museum. Holy Cheeseballs, Quentin, I definitely don’t want to relive that experience again.”

“Oh God,” Quentin stood up now, his fingers were pinching the center of his eyes furiously. “What the fuck Andrew?”

“But it’s not his fault. I mean, Andrew had a really nice intention of wanting to drive me home because you had practice. I’d still like him to be my friend, and I had already told him so. But he seemed like he doesn’t like me anymore,” I sighed dramatically, remembering the despondent look that Andrew had on his face a week ago. My limited interactions with people made me remember every single ones that I had. I knew I wasn’t the best conversationalist, given my insufficient amount of knowledge in teenagedom, but then I never knew that Andrew would be so dissappointed in me.

Quentin gaped at me. “You told him what?”

“I told him that I’d always be his buddy as long as he’s your buddy,” I tried to remember the exact words.

Quentin slapped his own forehead so hard I was afraid that it’d leave hand mark. “You told him that you’d be his buddy as long as he’s my buddy?”

“I told him that I’d always be his buddy as long as he’s your buddy,” I nodded.

“You told him that you’d be his buddy as long as he’s my buddy?!?!?!” for some reason, my brother kept repeating that.

“Um, we went through this twice already, Quentin. Do you want me to say it again?”

“Hell no, Ap,” there was a pause before his voice rose. “Gosh, gosh April!” Quentin was shaking my shoulder at this point. “My fucking gosh, sister! That’s gotta be the meanest thing you could ever tell him!”

Funny, because Ryder said the same thing.

“You’re coming with me to the party,” Quentin said in a final tone. “I don’t care if you have some sort of crazy nerdy schedule right now, but you’re coming with me, Ap. You have to. You have to learn the art of mating habits of the popular and the petty.”

“The mating habits of what?”

“Go change your clothes,” he basically shoved me towards the dressings cabinet. “And please don’t wear something with a cartoon character on it.”

“But I don’t want to go to any party!” I exclaimed, suddenly mortified at the sudden ordeal that was thrown to me. Going to a teenage party with my brother? Oh my Jedi, the horrors. There would be people. Lots of people. Lots of people who I didn’t know and lots of people whom only know me as Quentin the Quarterback’s twin sister. Lots of alcohol, which made these people act like crazy monkey. Lots of games that involved public humiliation and degradation of humanity.

Worst of all, lots of possible encounters of crazy bacterias that are going to be swirling through the massive crowd.

“Quentin…”

“You’re 17 year old, April,” Quentin said my full name, which could only mean that he was being serious about whatever membrane he was talking about. “Act like one. I know that the last time you went to a party was horrendous, but that doesn’t mean you’re not trying again, okay?”

My memories flew back to the first time I went to a juvenile gathering. I was a freshman at that time, and it was the first time Quentin got invited so he brought me along. I stared at one of my seniors five seconds too long (because he was gulping down beef jerky like it was water) and on the very next day, he said that I wanted the inside of his mouth mingling with mine. When my brother punched him sore, the senior cried out that I was leading him on.

If looking at a person funny for five seconds meant that I was practicing the art of mating habits, then I definitely didn’t want to go to any party. There would be far way too much people doing outrageous things, and I didn’t think that I could help myself to not look and be self-amused in the process.

“I don’t think that this is a good idea…” I mumbled.

“Me neither,” Quentin sighed. “But then it’s about time you go out, you know. I mean… look at you.”

I looked at myself, my hair was askew, my face covered with white powder that was supposed to be pimple ointment, and on my left hand was a magnifying glasses. I’d just started a new TV series of detectives, and it inspired me so much to buy my own magnifying glasses.

Quentin was also looking at the very thing. “I mean, I can’t think of any other girl who’d bring around a magnifying glass, for fuck’s sake. You’re not normal.”

“I never claim to be normal,” I said. “I like living like this, and I like having my Wheat and Strawberry days, and I really really like watching films that has a lot of scientific jokes even though I don’t really understand them. I like my life.”

“Oh, hell,” Quentin slapped his forehead once again.

“If you keep doing that, you’ll leave a mark.”

“What?”

“If you keep slapping your forehead,” I mimicked him. “It’s going to leave a mark.”

“Who the fuck cares about a hand mark on my fucking face, Ap?”

“Crystal Ming?” I offered.

There was an inaudible curse coming out from his mouth. “Anyway, you need to go out.”

I crossed my foot, as if to further prove my point that I wouldn’t heed to his words. “No.”

“Come on.”

I put Sherlock on my DVD player and watched the tall skinny man serenaded harmonious words of scientific deduction through the screen. “No.”

“April, please?”

I opened a bag of Fruity Loops (because it was Friday) and ate as loudly as I could. It hurt my teeth when I said another ‘No’.

“April,” Quentin’s voice circuited into a dangerous tone. “April, I will make a facebook of your name.”

Strike one. I tried to look as calm as the Zen, but nevertheless my bottom lip was quivering.

“I will add everyone in the school. Including Andrew and Zach and Krista.” Strike two. My brother continued the torture. I gulped. Krista was Quentin’s ex, and she made it absolutely clear that she thought I was a freak show on crack. I was afraid of her and self-diagnosed myself with KTSD: Krista Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I tried my best to concentrate on the words that majestic Sherlock was sprouting, but it was becoming too hard when the thought of having a facebook of my own name was dangling above me with a thin thread.

I heard the sound of camera flash going down.

Holy Matrimony of Cheese.

Quentin was looking at his phone smugly. “This will do for a profile picture.”

In a matter of seconds, I was shoving him out of the way and changed my clothes into something that didn’t have a cartoon character print.

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“See, isn’t this nice?” my brother was saying to me as we were getting into the house that was blasting with music. “It’s the weekend, and you’re not at home alone, watching that tall freak getting into everybody’s business.”

I had been planning to pout and look mad, but as soon as the surge of people flashed before my eyes, all hopes were lost. The mad face that I’d been practicing oh-so-perfectly at the car was smashed, and I was pretty sure my face was showing my fear.

That was a whole lot of people here.

And a lot of them were showing more than 70 percent of their skins. Even the boys.

I was in the middle of closing my eyes in order to avoid seeing a hairy potbelly, but Quentin was dragging me along with him. “Hey Tammy, Clara. Hey Joe! I know, I’m rocking the sweater.” He went through this very easily, my brother. He was a natural at socializing. He smiled at the right moment and his high-fives never miss, and he even accepted any drink that anyone offered to him. Within five minutes, his face was already red and I was left to wonder what kind of spikes the guys have given him.

“I need you to meet Andrew,” Quentin said.

I was busy looking at two girl licking at each other on the mouth. Apparently, they were the Stars of the hours, looking at the number of boys drooling (literally) over them.

“Is that Vivian and Mavis?” I asked Quentin.

“Maybe,” he stared at them too, but not for too long. “Come on, April. You need to meet Andrew.”

Oh, look. A guy was riding an invisible horse.

“Why would I need to meet Andrew? I’m fine sitting here, just looking at people do things they will never do when they’re sober and be amused and feel good about myself.”

“You’re sick, Sister,” Quentin drawled. The house was big, and the two of us looked everywhere in search of Andrew’s buzzed blonde cut (But I did saw someone shaving his head, though, which was far more entertaining). More people were shoving him drinks and he gobbled it all. After a while, his words started to slur more into the point of incoherency. “Fuzzah Hoozah Woozah.”

I had been refusing every single thing that they pushed to me, so I wasn’t in a state where I would be able to speak Drunk Language, but I did try. “Whuzzat?”

“Loozah phat,” my brother started to laugh. “Sandshrew hazznt houz.”

“Hoozah!” I laughed back at him, and he seemed to appreciate that, and we started to laugh together, before then the whites on Quentin’s eyes showed up and he slumped towards me.

Whuzzat?

The air enclosed around me. My brother’s whole dead weight was on top of me and I was struggling to stand upright.  I tried to crane my neck and ignored my brother’s saliva that was pooling on my shoulder. I tried to look for someone, anyone, that could help me out with this situation. I knew my brother wasn’t a strong drinker. He never were. He would go to the bathroom a lot, and had horrible hangovers, and pass out easily after a few drinks.

But everywhere I looked, all I saw were people swapping saliva, people in the middle of dancing (or jumping, I must say), and people who faked being drunk.

And then I heard his voice from my behind.

“Finally, he’s out of it.”

It was Ryder.

I nearly broke my neck when I turned around just to confirm it was him. It was totally uneccessary, because whenever he was near, I would have a violent bodily reaction that include immense sweating and the awakening of The Beast inside my stomach.

Hear that sound? It’s the sound of Ryder’s flesh-eating monster gnawing on my esophagus.

Ryder was smirking. On his left hand was a red cup of whatever liquid inside. His right hand was free, but not for long as he helped me pick up Quentin’s dead weight. I found my eyes drawn into the way his bicep flex when he dragged Quentin to the nearest sofa. The skull ink on top of it was stretching out and shrunk back in.

And then it struck me.

“Have you been giving him alcohol?” I had to scream in amidst of the blasting music and people shouting WOO to the imaginary DJ.

Ryder’s smile confirmed it. “I always knew that he couldn’t drink much.”

“Did you give poison to my brother?” I wondered out loud, and then started to panic myself. “For the love of Jedi’s swords, will my brother ever wake up?”

“April,” Ryder looked offended. “Hey, April…”

I checked on my brother’s face. For someone who partied a lot, he did have a low tolerance of alcohol, but who knew what Ryder could give to him? He was given the name of the school’s bad boy for something, and look at what he’d done to poor, abandoned class 42! I slapped Quentin’s cheek a few times, just to gauge reaction from him, but he only slurred outlandish language.

“I don’t give him any drugs,” Ryder said, kneeling beside me. “I mean, I did ask some of my friends to shove him vodkas, but I didn’t instruct them to put anything to it.”

“You have access to drugs?” at this point, I couldn’t close my mouth anymore. My eyes ran to my brother once again. He was laughing with his eyes closed.

It looked scary.

“What about Crystal?”

Ryder snorted. “What?”

“She’s the girl Quentin wants to impress tonight.”

Ryder snorted even more, although this time, with mockery. “What?”

“He even wears that green sweater for her,” I sighed for Quentin’s misfortune of being the victim of Ryder’s bad behavior tonight. “He wouldn’t have the chance to show it off to her.”

“The things guys do to get laid,” Ryder muttered, and then continued. “That shirt makes him look like a prissy wuss. I’m doing him a favor.”

It pained me, but I agreed with him.

“If he wakes up, will his IQ drop, considering the massive amount of drinks that you've given him?”

It took Ryder a while to answer this. “I’m sure his IQ will be fine.”

“Good, I think he needs help with his studies as it is,” I said absent-mindedly. My mind went blank once again as I looked at my brother. The blasting music around me somehow helped me to clear my head. And then there was something warm clasping on my shoulder.

Something warm and chaffed.

Something warm and chaffed and felt suspiciously like a hand.

“Stars, oh my!” I screamed as I finally realized that Ryder’s hand was on my shoulder. We were kneeling together in front of the sofa, and I hadn’t realized how close we really were all this time.

“Aaaand  here comes the Yoda,” Ryder sighed in dissapointment. “Honestly, I thought that you’d be used to me by now.”

“You kissed me on the cheek,” I told him. “Honestly, I thought that I was going to die if I saw you, but I don’t, which is a true miracle.”

“Did I come off too strong?” he asked.

“You’re not supposed to pass on a kiss that’s aimed for someone else!” I ranted on. The days of abundant coils and constant befuddlement weren’t doing me any good. I couldn’t study properly, I couldn’t get into any of Marcy and Corrine’s conversation, and I forgot every single formulas that the teachers taught at school.

How was I supposed to pass the exam with an A and maintain my relationship with Marcy and Corrine?!

“April, focus!” Ryder’s words brought me back to reality. “I was telling you that I didn’t really intend to kiss your mother on the cheek.”

I blinked.

“So why did you kiss me and tell me to pass it to her?” I asked him.

“Because I wanted to kiss you,” he answered. “Because you looked so adorable back there.”

“But why would you do that if you didn’t really intend to kiss Mom?”

“Because… I … wanted… to … kiss… you,” Ryder repeated, slowly.

I processed this. There was no way a person like Ryder wanted to kiss me just because. I had oily cheeks. I had no figure to flaunt to, and I was alarmingly alert of the nature of my nerditude. Ryder's type of girls usually consisted of female athletes with long shiny hair or older women, and I definitely didn't fit the criteria. I thought that I processed this for way too long because Ryder was waving his hand.

“Oh, forget it,” he said. “I thought that I'd knock your brother out because I want to talk to you in peace, but turns out that it really is impossible.”

He got up and proceeded to walk away from us. I watched his back retreating, before then I started to panic. With Quentin so drunk he was turned into a sluggish blob of death weight, and me with my uncoordinated hand and feet movement, how are we going home? I grabbed the hem of Ryder’s shirt just before he was out of my reach. The shirt hugged his body well, and I could feel my face warmed for some reason as I saw the muscles on his back became taut.

“What?” he asked.

Don’t look at his back, April, don’t look at his back. It’s giving you brain aneurysm.

“Can you drive us home?” I asked him.

“You want me to drive you home?” Ryder asked me back.

I flinched at the angry tone that he took. “Um. I- I can’t drive, and Quentin’s brain wouldn’t be functioning for at least a few days, given how much alcohol you’ve shoved him.”

“I just basically told you that I wanted to kiss you and you flat out rejected me and now you wanted me to drive you home?”

That reminded me of our previous conversation regarding Ryder’s kiss for my mother’s cheek. “Now, it’s still the puzzle that I haven’t quite figured-“

Ryder cut me off by putting his hand in between us. “Okay,” he said. “Fine, okay. I’ll drive you two home.”

As I passed him the keys to our car, however, I could hear him muttering,

“The things guys do to get laid…”

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Ryder is quite a dick when it comes to Quentin, and vice versa lol. Poor April doesn't even know what to make out from her emotions. If you're at the very least entertained by this, please vote, comment, or follow, or whatever. I don't really like saying these things all the time, but I guess it's kinda compulsary in an author's note.

Peace out! :)