O.J.

by Penny Hawking

  “Because that’ll be dumb.” He added.

  I giggled. “That’s so dumb.” I said my voice cracking at the end. I looked up at the sky and whistled. Shit. I looked everywhere but at him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings yesterday.” Andy said.

  “You didn’t hurt my feelings.” I said defensively.

  Andy squinted his eyes. “But back at the park you said I did.” He said slowly.

  “No.” I said quickly.

  “You were crying---”

  “No I wasn’t.” I blatantly denied it.

  “I saw you.” He said leaning forward.

  “No you didn’t.” I insisted. “I had something in my eye.” God why doesn’t he just drop the subject already. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “You were crying.” He stated calmly.

  “No I wasn’t.” I said stomping my foot. “But I do remember talking about you cutting yourself…remember that.” I snapped back.

  “Are you changing the subject because you’re embarrassed?” He asked calmly.

  “Are YOU changing the subject because YOU’RE embarrassed?” I asked crossing my arms over my chest.

  Andy brought up his hand and bit his thumb. He shrugged. “Yeah.” He said simply.

  I had my mouth open for another comeback but shut it quick. I hadn’t expected him to agree with me. “Well that’s you.” I said recovering and shrugging off his confession. He’s embarrassed of his scars?

  Andy shrugged again and turned around. “Are we still editing tonight or what?” He asked walking towards his truck.

  “Yeah…I’ll follow you to your house.” I answered. I turned to him and raised my eyebrow in surprise. “You know this is the most we’ve talked like…ever. We are actually having back and forth conversations.” I said laughing.

  Andy rolled his eyes and resumed walking. “You’re weird.” He mumbled, just enough for me to hear.

  “Am I your friend?” I teased as I picked up my bag. “Andy Wait! Andy! Friend! Don’t leave!” I joked throwing my head back in laughter as I rushed to gather my stuff.

  **********

  I sat on Andy’s bed as I went through the pictures from the shoot yesterday and today. He lived with his sister in a nice cozy suburban house. His bedroom was downstairs in the basement and it was a drastic change from what I saw upstairs. Where the living room and dining room were bright and colorful, Andy’s bedroom was dark and grey. It was so gloomy down there, almost no light whatsoever. There were 3 posters on the wall of 3 different bands that I’d never heard of. But they were all creepy with their heavy make-up and their dead stare. His carpet was black. His comforter was black. His couch and all his seating were also black. Surprisingly he had a very expensive looking mahogany desk. I noticed that he was really tidy. Nothing was out of place, there wasn’t a clutter or mess anywhere. Maybe he was a clean freak or something. I could never keep my room this clean no matter how hard I tried. It was funny because he seemed to be so cautious of everywhere I touched as though I was going to mess something up. It wasn’t like he had anything to mess up. I knew he was a little uneasy about me being in his room the way he rubbed his neck or rubbed his right arm nervously or moved around awkwardly. I guess it was his sanctuary of some sort and I was invading. But oh well, I was here now and there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  After about half an hour, I settled in. The room was starting to grow on me. It was dark and bland but strangely comforting. I laid on my back as I moved my legs in the air. “I think your room is starting to grow on me.” I said as I tried to balance my pencil on my nose.

  I heard his chair screech as he turned away from his desk. “Yeah?” He asked.

  I nodded. “It’s dark and gloomy and a little creepy but hey it’s you I guess.” I said smiling. I sat up and turned to find him staring at me. “I bet the ladies just go crazy for your amazing dark lair huh?” I joked.

  Andy frowned. “Um…no, not really?” He said rubbing his tattooed right arm. He did that a lot. He rubbed his right arm or his wrist or his neck. Maybe it was some sort of tick for him. Weird.

  “Not really what? The ladies or the dark lair?” I asked teasingly.

  “Both.” He said rubbing his neck.

  “Well I’m sure it’s not for lack of trying on their part.” I said bringing my laptop on my lap.

  Andy didn’t answer. I looked up to find him staring at his black carpet. Oh side note. His carpet is amazing. Like rolling around in it till you die amazing, it’s so soft and just amazing.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I asked, now fully distracted from my work. “I mean since you’re letting me be your friend and all...can we talk?”

  “What?” He asked suspiciously.

  “Are you gay?” I asked honestly. “Like seriously if you are, it’s not a problem, I don’t mind, I mean it’ll just help clarify something’s I guess. I mean I’ve always wanted a gay guy friend but…yeah so are you?”

  “Wow.” Was all he said calmly as he turned back around to his desk. I looked at him confused. So was that a yes or no? Most guys would be jumping up and down to prove their manliness, or at least object heartedly. He didn’t even object to the question. Was that a yes?

  “Okay so can I ask another question?” I asked.

  “I think you’re gonna ask it anyway.” He said not taking his eyes off his computer screen.

  “Why did you cut yourself? Were you like depressed or something?” I asked softly.

  I noticed his slight hesitation right before he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you not want to talk about it? Is it like a touchy subject?” I asked.

  Andy shrugged again.

  “Did it hurt?” I asked curiously. Okay that was dumb I know but he wasn’t saying anything. I really wanted to know. Even just a little bit, I realized that he intrigued me, I had to know more about this kid. Correction, I needed to know more about this kid. Shit I think I found my new obsession.

  Andy sighed.

  “It’s okay you don’t have to tell me.” I said quickly. I returned to my laptop. “Was it with a knife or one of those small blades?” I asked. I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from talking “Sorry, I’ll stop now.” We sat in silence for a little while until I was unable to keep what I was holding inside.

  “It’s just that I can’t imagine purposely hurting myself you know.” I said lifting my head to look at him. “Plus I like pass out over a paper cut.” I thought for a minute. “Do I sound really ignorant and dumb right now?” I asked. “Cause I’ll shut up if you want me too, matter of fact I’ll just shut-up.” I deleted a couple pictures as I narrowed down the collection. “It’s not like you’re listening anyways.” I muttered.

  I believe we were quiet for about 15 minutes when Andy finally spoke up.

  “It’s personal okay.” He said softly. “It’s something from the past, that’s it.”

  “Oh okay.” I said sitting up. I crossed my arms and moved around on his bed a little. “So do you do it because you like hate life and people or something? Is that why you don’t have any friends and stuff?” I asked softly.

  “I’m almost done with page 4.” Andy said changing the topic.

  Don’t worry I wasn’t easily deterred. “Well I think that if you let people be your friend and let them get to know you, maybe you might be a little happier.” I shrugged. “You’re actually pretty cool.” I said a little shyly. “I mean you’re not like this amazing cool dude, you’re kinda weird but you know, you’re alright, and if you acted like that with everybody else than maybe….I don’t know.” I trailed off. “Maybe you won’t be so sad.”

  I saw the sadness in his eyes frequently. I guess that’s what was pulling me so much to him, I had to help him. He needed to be happy. He needed to overcome this. Whatever this was. His eyes were those eyes that were meant to smile and shine bright not to be so overcast and dead.

&
nbsp; “And life I know is shit, but hey you know don’t let it get to you, that’s what I do. I don’t really think of all the bad things.” Don’t ask me why I was on my Dr. Phil shit because I don’t know. Now I wanted him to smile for once or just be happy. Actually right now it was killing me that I had yet to see this kid smile, I wonder what it would look like if he was happy.

  We heard footsteps upstairs and we both looked up. There was shuffling around and placing down of objects.

  “Susie’s home.” Andy said in a careless tone, but I caught the brief happiness in his voice.

  “Hey Baby bro, I brought pizza.” Susie said opening the basement door and shouting down. “Whose car is in the driveway?” she asked.

  “Mine.” I chirped happily. I hopped off the bed and made my way to the bottom of the stairs. I waved at Susan. She was beautiful.

  She looked surprised to see me. “Ornelia….” She said slowly. She raised one of her eyebrows and smirked. “Well I guess progress has been made.”

  Andy came over to stand next to me. “We’ll be right up.” He said. Susie looked him up and down and took in his appearance. I did the same thing. He did look rather disheveled to say the least. But that had nothing to do with me. His hair was ruffled because Maria had been playing in it all day. His shirt was a little twisted….a little questionable. I slowly looked down at myself and took in my wrinkled shirt and skirt. Well that was because I was laying on the bed for so long. I tried to fix my hair. This was exactly one of the instances where it was not at all what it looked like. I looked up and caught Susan’s eye.

  “We were going over our English project.” I said quickly as I fixed my skirt.

  “Of course.” She said smirking at her little brother. “And here I thought you had thrown away all pretenses of a social life baby bro.”

  Andy stuck his middle finger up at his older sister. She grinned and left.

  “Ignore her.” He said heading up the stairs.

  “Does she think we were messing around?” I asked. That would be weird.

  Andy shook his head. “She knows we weren’t she just likes to be a sarcastic bitch sometimes.” He said calmly.

  I followed him up the stairs. “How does she know we weren’t?” I asked. “Is it cause she knows you don’t like girls?” I probed him again for an answer to my earlier question.

  Andy shrugged, as he opened the basement door and we walked out.

  I paused for a minute. He’s gay? He is really skinny, and has that long hair thing going on. Plus if you think about it with his eyes he could be considered pretty. But he just didn’t give off gay vibes, what was I missing? I followed him up the stairs. He got a boner a couple days ago didn’t he? I guess that doesn’t mean anything. I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice when he stopped. I rammed my head into his back hard.

  Andy turned back and looked at me like I was the biggest fool to ever walk the earth.

  “You stopped really fast.” I accused, rubbing my head.

  “I was walking slow.” He said as he gave me a confused look.

  I rolled my eyes and pushed him aside as I walked past him. I got this feeling that Andy thought I was dumb or something. If you saw the looks he gave me you would think I was dumb. I’m not dumb, I just happen to do a variety of dumb stuff. That doesn’t mean he can keep looking at me like I’m constantly growing an extra head.

  “I hope you like extra cheese.” Susan said lifting up a large box of Papa John’s pizza. “That’s all Andy eats.”

  I turned to him mouth open. “Just cheese!” I yelled. “Andy live a little….what happened to good old pepperoni?” I asked him.

  Andy stepped away from me slowly. He moved his bangs out of his face. He didn’t answer but he gave me another one of those looks like he was questioning my sanity.

  I turned and smiled at Susan. “Actually I love extra cheese.”

  “O-oookay.” She said handing me the box as she shook her head clearly amused.

  Dinner with the Perths was really interesting to say the least. Susan wasn’t the exact opposite of her brother but she was a little different and livelier. She talked about everything and anything that came to mind. She didn’t hold anything back, and Andy was right she was sarcastic. I’d never seen a grown-up act like her before. She made the awkward pauses less evident in conversations when Andy refused to speak which was 98.7% of the time. And when he did speak, it was one word answers and such. She teased him a lot too, but I could see it was all out of love. Andy was a little more relaxed with his sister around you could just tell he was more comfortable. He practically did everything before she asked. He gave her her pizza and waited for me to get my slice. He served us drinks. Well Susan had a beer and I just got some mango passion juice and he settled for some water. Very good juice by the way. Though Andy didn’t say much, I knew he listened to his sister. He was gentle with her and I saw the respect. Their relationship was totally different from me and my older sister that was for sure, we fought like cats and dogs. I did take note of the fact that Andy kept looking in my direction, for no particular reason. When I would look back at him, he would simply look away. Not look away in the flirty manner either but in a casual nonchalant way. But then after a while he avoided looking in my direction. Maybe it was because I pursed my lips at him teasingly and blew him a kiss.

  Other than that I enjoyed myself. It was awkward and weird but still peaceful. It only became even more awkward when Susan left to go watch some T.V and Andy refused to talk as he cleared the table and put the stuff away.

  “So buddy we should do this again sometime.” I said leaning against the counter as he wiped the table. There was something sexy about seeing a guy clean up.

  He shrugged.

  “Do you cook? Maybe you should cook for me.” I said thoughtfully.

  Andy didn’t respond.

  “If you haven’t noticed yet, I don’t need you to talk for me to have a conversation with you.” I said as I touched his hair as he passed in front of me. I grinned and jumped as my thigh vibrated. I reached into my skirt pocket and took out my phone.

  “Hey babes.” I said happily as I turned and sat on the stool.

  “Hey man where you at?” Nico asked.

  I turned to look at Andy. “Umm with Andy. We were still editing some pictures from the shoot, we just finished eating.” I leaned back. “Why where are you?”

  “At your house. Come on get over here. I brought marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers.”

  I sat up straight grinning. “S’mores!” I said happily.

  “Yeah S’mores, you coming or what?” Nico said.

  I giggled as I hopped off the stool. “Is this your way of apologizing for being a shitty friend this week?” I said.

  “Yes sweetheart.”

  I turned to Andy. “Hey you wanna come to my house? We’re making S’mores.”

  Andy looked surprised that I asked.

  “You coming?” Nico asked.

  “Yeah I’m coming chill son.” I said. “Bye.” I hung up and looked up at Andy for a response.

  “No I’m good thanks.” He said.

  I rolled my eyes. “You couldn’t surprise me and randomly say yes?” I asked.

  He gave me one of his infamous blank stares.

  “Come on S’mores they’re like the best thing in the world. Marshmallow and chocolate and graham crackers…a little piece of heaven on earth.” I said happily. When I saw he didn’t change his mind, I pouted. “You’re no fun.”

  “Don’t take it personal hun. Andy doesn’t like sweets.” Susan said as she grabbed her beer that she’d left and walked right back out.

  “Doesn’t like sweets?” I said in shock. I was like a sweet addict, I needed to go to a help group. I looked Andy up and down. “How is that possible?”

  There was a little pause as he didn’t know how to answer that.

  “At least chocolate, tell me you like chocolate, everybody likes chocolate.” I said hopefully.
r />   Andy rubbed his neck and shook his head.

  “Candy?”

  Andy once again shook his head.

  “Anything?” I squeaked.

  Seeing as that was a no, I brought my hand up to my forehead. “Wow you must have been like the perfect child.” I said still in shock.

  My phone vibrated again but I just ignored it. “So I guess I should go.” I said. I was already thinking of all the sweet goodness waiting at home.

  “I’ll finish the paper for the third shoot.” He said.

  I grinned. “Thanks and don’t forget we have one on Saturday with the twins and our last one on Sunday, then Thanksgiving break!” I said happily as I moved my shoulders and arm and did a little dance. I paused and looked at Andy and shrugged. “Don’t hate because you can’t move like me.” I joked.