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“What’s up with you?” Matt asked. Frank had been sitting on his bed, glancing his way every now and again and then acting like he hadn’t, even though Matt could literally see the whole room at all times. Why even hide anything? Shit, I sound like my parents.
“Nothing,” Frank mumbled, sinking back against the pillow that he had propped up against the wall. His fingers toyed with some kind of fidget he had crafted, a little elastic propellor thingy that he could twist and then it would untwist.
‘Nothing’ was quite a horrible answer to Matthew, since it gave his brain so much playroom. He didn’t liked it when his brain was ‘playing’. There was clearly something wrong with Frank, or something wrong between them. Frank had some kind of secret that he didn’t trust Matthew with. Had Matt ever done something to betray his trust? Was he a bad person? Did Frank just need space? But Matt needed to help him if there was something wrong! They were friends after all and that was what friends did! He’d be a bad friend if he didn’t help and he wanted Frank to be happy!
“Ugh,” said Frank, which sent Matthew’s brain into overdrive before Frank continued with: “I gotta tell you something, but I don’t want to…”
Shit, what could that possibly be? Had he done something? Had he hurt someone? Did Matt have some kind of foul smell about him that everyone knew about but nobody dared to tell him? Did Frank secretly not like him at all and wanted to change rooms?
“Is it positive or negative?” Matt managed to ask. It would be negative, of course. Why else wouldn’t he want to say it? Maybe Frank was terminally ill!
“Depends,” Frank answered, not helping at all.
Well, being terminally ill was seldomly positive, unless Frank assumed that Matt secretly hated him… Surely he didn’t? What could depends even mean? What did it depend on? Or was is maybe something illegal or against the rules and was Frank scared Matt would rat him out? Would he rat Frank out? He honestly wasn’t sure. That did really depend on the thing he had done. If it was something that endangered people…
“You okay?” Frank asked and Matthew realised he was probably looking like a zombie, the way he was in his head right now.
“No, please tell me, my brain is killing me,” Matthew admitted. Frank took a deep sigh.
“I… I have a massive crush on you.”
WHAT?! Matthew felt his throat close up. Shit, shit, shit… He hadn’t even considered that! Yeah, that did indeed depend, but also, it really didn’t! Frank was his best friend, and he had been on and off in love with him since… well at least two years. But he had decided not to act on it. He had chosen to just keep things as they were, because they were so bloody good! And now Frank came in with this and he just said the thing out loud and… Crap, he couldn’t reject him, could he? That would be madness! But things would change and good things shouldn’t change. He hadn’t had many good things before coming to St. Chunley’s and he wasn’t ready to lose any of the good things he had here right now.
He was staring into the void again and Frank looked concerned.
“If you don’t… well, I mean, you can just, like, reject me,” Frank said, clearly trying to damage control. “That’s fine, I mean, I get it. I just wanted to try, but… and I could even see if someone wants to swap rooms with me, so…”
Matthew tried to tell him to stop talking, but his throat wasn’t about to let him speak. Fuck this. Instead, he put his finger on his lips and then held his hand out to Frank, hoping that would signal ‘please give me a moment in silence’.
“Sorry,” Frank said and then shut up. That was good.
Well, it was good in the sense that now Matt’s brain could take over in the noise-making again. Could he say yes? ‘I’m into you too’? But what if things wouldn’t work out and then he’d lose his best friend? But on the other hand, he’d probably lose his best friend by rejecting him now anyway. Because Frank might say everything would be alright but of course it wouldn’t.
Frank was fiddling with the fidget toy even more now, eyes focused on Matthew, who let his notebook fly over to him. If he couldn’t talk, at least he could write.
“Lump in my throat. Can’t talk. Give me a moment.” He wrote down and showed Frank, who nodded but didn’t really seem to be comforted by that. Of course not, because it wasn’t an answer. Matt let his pen spin between his fingers as he debated what to write down. Things were really messed up right now, weren’t they? And he did like Frank… He could just…
“I’m scared” he wrote down. Frank smiled slightly.
“Me too,” he said.
Oh shit, Matt felt himself starting to shake. Why?! This was so frustrating! The boy he’d been crushing on for two years now liked him back and he couldn’t even be happy about it! Tears welled up behind his blindfold and he had to bend forward slightly to not make them fill up his sockets. Bullshit curse. Why couldn’t he be a normal person, at least with this? A normal gay cursed boy who at the very least could be happy about someone crushing on him?
“Can I hug you?” Frank asked. Matthew put up his thumb and Frank came over to his bed, sat down next to him and wrapped his arms around Matt, who put his head on Frank’s shoulder. Ahhh this felt really good! See, brain, it feels good! Please release happy hormones instead of adrenaline! But no, still adrenaline, making him shake and probably making Frank think he’s some kind of monster whose love is very scary…
Everything was already screwed now, right? Nothing to be done? So he might as well…
He released himself from Franks arms, trying to smile at him to signal that he wasn’t mad or appalled or anything, but with the tension in his face right now, he probably looked like a murder clown instead. He took his notebook in his hands again. His pen was shaking along with his hand, but he forced it to write out:
“I like you too” And then for clarity’s sake he added: “crush”.
Frank’s face seemed to split open into a grin and Matthew felt incredibly jealous. He wanted to be that happy as well!
“Then why are you shaking like this, silly?” Frank asked, putting his arms around Matt again. Matthew pointed with his pen at the line ‘I’m scared’.
But now that a decision was made, he felt his breathing calm down, his shaking becoming less and he managed to lean into the hug more, although he was now squeezing Frank like a stuffed animal to release some of the tension from his body. Frank didn’t seem to mind.
Once his body felt a little more relaxed, Matt trusted himself to let go of Frank, pick up his notebook again – what he wanted to say wasn’t something the muscles in his throat would allow him to – and write down: “Can we do this without ruining what we have?”
“I think so,” Frank said after reading it. He sounded confident, which put Matt at ease a little more.
“What if we break up and hate each other?”
“What if the school explodes and we all die?” Frank suggested. “I can’t predict the future and neither can you, so…”
“I wish I could,” Matthew mumbled, glad to notice he was able to talk again.
“So you could tell me what our wedding will look like,” Frank said, wiggling his body even closer to Matthew. Matthew now smiled genuinely. Frank was right, things might just work out. Maybe they would work out!