In Nomine Story, Chunk 2

(2080 words)

Andrew cycled down the street, heading west down the hill. Behind him, the risen sun was shining its long rays down, illuminating the scene before him. Every piece of glass, every touch of chrome on the parked cars, sent its own little beam of light back at him, dazzling and beautiful. The morning wind blew east, into his face, and his watering eyes added their own touch of dazzle to his sight. Before him, the hill of Otter Street stretched, almost a mile of steady descent. The trees that lined the road still had their leaves, although they were beginning to turn yellow with the fall. It was still early, only 7:30 in the morning, and the street was mostly empty, only a distant dog walker halfway down the hill representing other people.

Pedaling furiously, Andrew built up a good speed, then settled back and let the bike freewheel. He'd done this route before. Every school day for four months each year for the past three years. Start of September until the first snowfall in late October or early November, then after the snow had melted again, in late April, until the end of school. It was routine. Otter Street was the main route in from Arlington Heights where Andrew lived to the closest part of downtown. Every side street had a stop or yield sign, and drivers were careful around here. Everyone knew there were lots of kids in this neighborhood. Not that Andrew didn't keep an easy hand on his brake, and an eye on the crossroads. Tempting fate was dumb, and he had no desire to wind up a headline.

As he headed down the hill towards the high school that was his destination, Andrew was muttering to himself under his breath. "Fuck, this sucks. How come I have to bike when every other fucking kid in the class has a car by now? Even fucking Brenda, on her third car. And I don't even get one? But no, Dad's all 'I can't just buy you a car, you've got to show you deserve it'. Fuck this." Andrew pedaled another few strokes, more to burn off some anger than to keep up his speed. His thoughts continued to seethe, though. It's just not fair! I do okay in school, I'm smarter than three-quarters of the people there. I know how to drive. So why can't I get a car? It's not like we don't have the money for it. What's the use of Dad having the cash if he isn't going to spend it on me, at least a bit? He kept biking, letting the anger flow through his veins and burn away any other emotions. Anger was better than the gloom that other thoughts gave him.

Like Chris and Ray. And there, with shocking suddenness, the gloom was back. The anger was still there, too, like lava underneath a black crust. But the depression of that thought kept the anger down for now. Every time he thought about it, everything rushed back. That terrible day last January where the whole world went wrong. It had been such a nice day, too. Bright blue sky, just a bit of a breeze, the sun shining on the snowy landscape, making everything shine. And the little MSN cat window on his computer screen, with its horrible little message of doom. "Ray asked me to go out with him! Isn't that /great/!? :-) :-D". Funny how he even remembered the smilies she used. But what he remembered most was the horrible feeling of the world collapsing around his ears. That's it, that's all. It's all over. Why did this happen? And he hadn't found an answer, not then, and not now, nine months later. He wondered if he ever would find one.

He had always thought it would work. He loved Chris. He loved her for years. She had moved into the house across the street when he was in kindergarten. And he had been crazy for her ever since. Brown hair, sometimes short, sometimes long, sometimes styled. Blue eyes, behind glasses until she got contacts, back in junior high. Tomboy right from the start. Always running around. She was always in better shape than Andrew was. She could outrun him, outclimb him, outswim him. And outfight him, although that wasn't hard. Not that he ever started anything, but when you're ten, you show someone you like them by stealing their hat, and running away, and if you do it too many times in a day, they punch you. They hadn't talked to each other for a week after that, and that had been terrible. It lasted until he went up to her house, knocked on her door, and apologized and promised never to do it again. She had hugged him and said it was cool. And he had never done it again. That was all quite a while ago, of course. Chris was still athletic, though. She was on the girls' basketball team, and she was good, too. Vice-captain, this year, and her parents sometimes talked about athletic scholarships.

Andrew didn't care how good she was, though. He just liked to go to the games to watch her. Just seeing her move around the court, sweating and flushed, happy and excited to be winning, or determined to come back from behind, was great. And hanging out with her was always great. She was always laughing, she'd giggle at the slightest provocation. And if you made her giggle enough, she'd start to snort, and that made her laugh harder, and it got worse, and sometimes you could make her spend her entire lunch break laughing too hard to even eat, and then she'd punch you in the arm afterwards, but not hard. And Andrew would dream of the day when he'd just catch her hand before it hit the arm, grab her other hand too, and pull her close, and kiss her, and she'd kiss back, and then he could just hold her, forever...

And he had always thought it would work out, someday. That someday, he'd get up the courage, and ask her. Or she'd ask him. Or she'd find one of his secret notebooks, and ask "Andrew, what you wrote there, is it true?" and then he'd mumble for a bit and then nod shyly and say "Yes", and she'd say "I never realized you thought the same way I did!" and kiss him, and then... And nothing had really stopped the ideas. Chris hadn't dated anyone. A couple people asked her out, but she turned them down, and kept hanging out with Andrew and Ray on weekends, watching movies, or biking around, or doing homework together, or throwing snowballs, or swimming. And he could believe it was because she really wanted to be with him, but couldn't ask him yet.

But that had all broken apart that treacherously bright winter day. Eight years of dreams and fantasies had caught fire and burned as if they were soaked in gasoline, and that damned MSN window was a match being held to them. He'd barely had the strength to write back how great that it was, after a two minute delay. And then sit there in his chair, stunned, while she gushed at him about how great it was, and where the first date was going to be, and wasn't it great that Ray liked her as much as she liked him, and whether she should start looking for a dress for the prom, because this year she'd have a date there! Andrew didn't need to contribute anything at all to keep the stream of happy, bubbly, joyful attacks on his heart coming. Finally, after an hour of just sitting there and just typing in "Cool" and "Okay" and "That's nice" every ten minutes, he begged off. Homework, he had said. No, can't do anything this evening. Got a project I need to work on. Sorry, Chris. Yeah, probably busy tomorrow, too. See you Monday.

And then he had turned off the computer, and sat down on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. It hadn't really sunk in at that point. He had stared and stared and stared, until Dad had called him for supper. And then he had gone down, eaten the food mechanically, washed the dishes mechanically, gone back upstairs mechanically, and laid back down on his bed. And then stared at the ceiling some more. Until, all of a sudden, he had just turned over and started to cry. Nothing too dramatic, no sense in having Dad hear it and come in and try to sympathize with him, tell him that it would be alright, or some bullshit like that. Because it wasn't going to be alright, how could it be? Chris didn't love him the way he loved her, she loved Ray. And he had watered the pillow with tears for two hours, until he finally couldn't cry any more. So he went and had a shower, and then went back to his room, and turned the computer on again. He made sure not to let MSN start up, though. He couldn't talk to anyone now. He played computer games that night, violent ones. He didn't usually like that sort of thing. He'd rather write, or sketch, or play the piano. But right then, all those things were too happy, too much like things he'd enjoyed doing with Chris. So he shot imaginary computer enemies, with imaginary lasers, and tried to believe that he was blowing up Ray, and Chris, and everyone in school, and Dad, and everyone in the whole world that had just betrayed him. And he couldn't even do that properly. Every time he pictured Ray's face on the enemy, he got twitchy. Every time he fired a missile at a ship and thought "That's Chris in there!", he started to shake. Every rocket he launched, pretending that the blast would catch Dad, or the dumbasses from school, or anyone real, he got sick. So, eventually, he just pretended nothing, and just lost himself in the challenge of shooting pixels on the screen, secure in the knowledge that they were fake.

The next day, he had taken his secret notebooks out of the shoebox in the closet, and started methodically tearing pages out of them. And then ripping the pages in half. And ripping the halves into quarters. He made a giant heap of confetti on his bed, and then swept it all into the wastebasket, and bagged it up, and hauled it out to the dumpster. Dad had given him a look when he saw him taking out the trash, but Andrew had figured that it was the surprise of seeing him actually take out trash without prompting. And then Andrew had sat in his room for most of the afternoon. He had worked on the homework a little, but gave up after staring at the same equation for fifteen minutes. After supper he had gone back up to his room, and watched Moulin Rouge twice. And then went to bed, and cried himself to sleep.

And that had set the pattern of his days for the past nine months. He'd go out, and do things. He'd go to class, do his chores, his homework. When Chris or Ray wanted to talk, he'd keep the conversation light. How did you do on that test, doesn't the substitute suck, who is Brenda dating this week? He'd hang out with them, sometimes. They'd still watch movies, or go biking. But it was always different. There was a connection between the two of them that he'd never be a part of, and it shut him out. And they never noticed, which was worse. He'd sit on the sofa beside them when they watched something, and shoot glances at them, cuddling and stealing kisses, and feel a scream build up. He'd watch them chatter, or reach out to touch hands while riding the bikes, and he felt like shouting "Hey! Remember me? Your friend? Who, oh yeah, loves you, Chris? What happened to me?" And they never stopped. He found excuses not to hang out with both of them together, after a while. He could still hang out with them alone, but even that was hard. And he kept going through the days wondering how he had lost the game before he had had the chance to play, or even learn the rules.