The Science of Falling In Love

four

Dinner at the Dillon household was quiet that night. Mostly because Charlie's younger sister, Sam, was distracted by her brand new cell phone. She didn't understand why Sam was so impressed. It was just a basic slide phone, not really anything that special. But hey, if it meant more potatoes for her, she couldn't care less.

Reaching across the table, she grabbed the bowl of potatoes, getting two more scoops to put on her plate. She felt her dad staring at her the whole while, but she didn't look up. Charlie knew he loved potatoes just as much as she did.

Putting the serving spoon back in the bowl, she placed the food right back in the middle of the table. She silently began devouring her dinner, chewing slowly and staring off into the distance as she thought about what homework she had to finish by tomorrow.

"So, Charlie," her dad said, his deep voice interrupting her train of thought. She glanced over, taking in the sight of his curious face. "How are your grades?"

She stopped her chewing, feeling her blood pounding in her ears. Her eyes went back to her plate, and nervously, she pushed around the pile of mash. How were her grades? They were terrible. All Cs. But then again, she could lie about them, bringing up his hopes so he wouldn't whoop her ass at the dinner table and take away her phone.

There was just one problem. He could tell when she was lying. Usually, he didn't say anything, trusting that she would choose to do the smart alternatives to whatever she got herself into. But grades? That's when he'd get all strict with her.

Clearing her throat, the blonde looked up, swallowing the lump of food in her mouth with just a little bit of a struggle. She smiled sheepishly, her cheeks warm. "I'm working on them."

"What are they right now?"

Shit. No way to get herself out of that one. "Dad, I-"

BZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZ.

Jumping slightly, her dad's eyes bulged, and he dropped his fork onto the floor, startled by his ringing phone. Charlie was caught off guard by this too, but once she realized what it meant, she instantly relaxed. When he dug into his pocket to answer the call, she stood up quickly, taking her plate with her before she ran out of the room. "I'm gonna work on homework, night Dad! Night Sam!"

Thank god for that phone call. If she answered his question.... Yikes. She didn't want to think about it.

----------

His bedroom was absolutely littered with dirty plates and cups of cold coffee. On the floor, papers were scattered like leaves on the ground in autumn, and his walls were filled with sticky notes from random dates, including some from two years ago.

Amongst this mess, Andrew sat, running a hand through his tousled brown hair as he attempted once again at fixing a lamp with a broken fuse. So far, he's been burned approximately three times.

"Bloody hell," he muttered to himself, the soft sound of instrumentals playing in the background on his laptop.

He took a glance at his phone, which held instructions on fixing lamps, but unfortunately for him, they were as useful as pen with no ink. Frustration bubbled up inside the male as the directions began to become more and more dangerous by the second, and after he read step ten, he decided to call it quits.

It's fine. He didn't need a bedroom lamp anyway.

Putting away his tools and tossing the lamp into his junk pile, he walked back toward his bed, falling into the mattress and blankly staring into the dark. At least he had his phone flashlight, which would have to do until his older cousin John sent him more money to buy himself some more necessities.

Blinking, he went over the moments of his day through his head, remembering Penny's new mission. To get him a girlfriend.

The thought of that even happening was enough to make him shiver, and rubbed his eyes. It's not like he didn't want a girlfriend. Andrew certainly did want one. But he didn't see why it was such a big deal right now. Being nineteen and single wasn't a bad thing, he'd tell Penny constantly. But she'd ignore his protests, going off into a babble about how she'd be his children's awesome godmother.

Sighing, he wandered deeper into the subject, thinking and thinking. The concept of love was something he was a little bit wary about. For a while, he's believed that love was a fictional idea created by the romantic dreamers. And he was content with believing that idea, moving through life without getting into tedious relationships that required ridiculous amounts of effort.

Why should the participants buy each other things? What was so special about kissing and holding hands? How could someone find a person they wanted to spend the rest of their life with?

Those were questions running through his head every single day, and he questioned it even more when he'd stumble upon lovey dovey couples making out in the hall.

And of course, at the topic of love, he thought of his parents. How they failed at it and how they never spoke again, even when it regarded issues about Andrew himself. They hardly ever visited him, both being too busy to even think about dropping by his lonely apartment.

He supposed that's when he knew love wasn't real, pushing away the idea when Penny got into the age of crushes. She'd always ramble on about the dreamy boy she set her eyes on, and he'd scoff, amused. Only once has he felt that way about a girl, but he fought back the feelings to avoid blindly jumping into a situation that would end up like his parents.

Andrew was content with being alone. Growing up, he didn't mind it, and he didn't mind it now. If he was supposed to live a life in solitude, he accepted it with grace. But of course, one can only go on with being alone for a limited amount of time before they go just a tiny bit mad. Loneliness was just inevitable.