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“Quit it.” Noel snapped, swinging his head to glare daggers at Ocean, who was doing her homework. She stared back innocently at him, pausing her humming.
“Quit what?” She asked.
“You know what. Quit it. ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She hummed a few more notes. Despite her attempt at faux innocence, the small tight lipped smirk playing on her features was more than enough to tell she was anything but.
Noel screamed, though it was really more of a squawk than anything, and launched himself at her. Ocean screamed back, toppling from his desk chair as he fell upon her. The two began rolling around on the carpeted floor of Noel’s room, scrabbling and screaming.
“Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg! Noel Gruber!” Noel’s mother shouted from his doorway, ducking in to see the two teenagers on the ground, with Ocean on top of Noel, hands around his neck. Noel’s hands were wrapped into Ocean’s ginger hair, pulling fistfulls near the scalp. “What are you two doing in here?”
“Oh, hi, Ms. Gruber!” Ocean chirped, pulling her hands up and away from Noel’s neck.
“Ocean, you know that I’m Kelly to you, you’re practically my second child, enough with this ‘Ms. Gruber’ nonsense.”
“She started it!” Noel said, pushing her off of him.
“I don’t care who started it, don’t pull her hair out! And Ocean, sweetie, don’t choke him out, you two have that competition coming up.”
“Yes, Ms. Gru-Kelly.”
“Thank you. And Noel?”
“I won’t rip out Ocean’s hair.” Noel grumbled.
“ Thank you. I was thinking about ordering out, what do you two think?”
“Ooh, can we get Indian?”
“Of course! Same as always?”
“Momma, have we ever gotten anything other than that?”
“Once or twice, I think. Dal Chaawal and Kashmiri Dum Aloo, coming right up! Don’t kill each other, okay? My shows are coming on soon.”
With that, Ms. Gruber turned around and left, leaving the two teenagers on the ground.
“You know, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed.” Ocean said, turning to Noel and planting her chin on her hand.
“Don’t therapize me.”
“‘ I love you more than money, even if I’d buy the world for a taste of your honey ?’ That’s positively poetry, Noel! It’s right up your alley.”
“Ocean we don’t know it’s about me.”
“ You’re a poet, but I’m lost for words? ”
“That could be about anyone!”
“ Staring at you in class, with all that -’A-S-S?’”
“ Ocean. I will kick out your braces.”
“I think you should talk to him about it.”
“He doesn’t even know I have his youtube. Or his SoundCloud.”
At this Ocean wrinkles her nose, raising a scrutinizing eyebrow at him. He raises one right back, offering another, more brutal glare.
“How’d you get it?”
“...He linked it on his twitter a few months ago.”
“Noel.”
“I know! ”
Noel flops onto his back, falling onto his carpeted floor defeatedly. Ocean scooted a little closer, and fell back as well, admittedly less defeated. She rolled over to look at him, and he turned his head to gaze at her miserably.
“I can’t say anything.” He said quietly.
“I know.” She responded, just as despondent as him.
“I wish I could, it’s just..” He gestured vaguely, looking back up at his weird plaster ceiling. “We live in Uranium.”
“It’s not all bad, Noel. I’m sure he wouldn’t be terrible about it.”
“Ocean, we go to a catholic school. In the sticks of the sticks.”
Ocean tucked herself into Noel’s side, moreso specifically, her head onto his chest.
“You have a heartbeat. Isn’t that an excuse for it to beat for whoever it wants?”
“Well, Ocean, who’s the poet now?” Noel pokes her in the side, and she shoves herself off of him.
“I don’t have a speech for this, I’m doing my best!” She thwacked him in the chest, and
he jolted.
“Ow, ow, ow! My tit!”
“ Noel! Language!”
“Fuck, shit, balls, cock, ass-”
She hit him particularly hard, and the air is punched out of him. He rolls onto his side,
and curls into a ball, groaning.
“Sorry! Sorry-”
“You’re fine, you horrible succubus.” He pushes himself back up, and when he looks at
her again, his expression is mildly fond. “I appreciate you trying, Ocean. I think I’m just going to…hold out, I guess. One day, I’ll get out of this shit hole, and I’ll move to France, and I’ll get a real husband.”
“I have to be your maid of honor, when I have time in between the speeches and parliament meetings.”
“Of course, and it’ll be hard for me to choose a husband, with all the men I’ll have throwing themselves at me. I’ve got to choose one before I die in a gutter at thirty, too.”
“You can’t die at thirty! If you die at thirty, how are you supposed to live to see me become queen of Canada?”
“Oh, so we’re both gonna be old queens?”
They’re silent, for just a moment, before they both break into peals of laughter. Ocean’s turning wheezy at the end.
“Christ.” Noel manages, after a moment of quiet.
“I think you have a chance, really.” Ocean says quietly.
“A chance isn’t good enough for me to risk it.”
They’re quiet again. Together, they lay on his floor until Noel’s mother calls for them.
Noel stands up first, holding a hand out and pulling Ocean up off the ground.
“Wanna watch that documentary you got from Blockbuster? The one on the french revolution?” Ocean asks. Noel can tell she’s trying to take his mind off of him, and he appreciates it.
“Les Mis is hardly a documentary, but that sounds alright. I left the VHS on the table last night.”
Ocean grins.
“Bet I’ll beat you down the stairs.”
“Oh you are so fucking on.”
With no small amount of pushing, neither of them won, as when Noel was on the third step to victory, Ocean knocked into him, sending them both down the stairs in a tangle of limbs and pain.
However, both still said they won when Noel’s mother asked, exasperated at the two’s antics.