Far Away Love ࿐ Ryden

7

hey there i always feel guilty for not posting so here i am, posting. i love the wonder years and also this story i love sort of basic high school plots tbh it's something nice to write. 

7 -- [0211]

i wait sixteen, a saturday love, my heart beats fast, in far away love

Patrick shows up at Ryan's lunch for the first time in a while, and Ryan almost hates him for it. He had been planning on buying a cereal packet and a carton of chocolate milk and then sitting on the dusty basement stairs near the science hallway with Frank but walking into the cafeteria to see Patrick at the back of the lunch line really doesn't sit well with Ryan. Patrick looks up at Ryan as he walks up behind him, not really knowing what to say.

"Hey." Patrick says, voice hoarse.

"Where were you this morning?" Patrick looks confused and shuffles forward in the line.

"I thought Pete told you I was switching out of gym."

"Oh, he did. Where were you?" Patrick doesn't reply, and Ryan looks around, wondering if all of this pain is worth some cereal and chocolate milk. There's a hollow, painful feeling in his chest, and he really feels a bit tired and sort of dizzy and ready to just collapse, honestly. Another pause, and then Ryan ducks out of the line, walking fast, headed back toward the science wing. And he's halfway there before he hears his name being called halfheartedly.

"Ryan, please, come on." Patrick sounds fed up and tired, almost like his emotions match magically with Ryan's, Ryan who keeps walking. "Fuck, I'm sorry, okay?" His words come slowly like he's trying to think them out properly and really, he's probably high. Ryan turns around to walk backwards and he realizes that maybe Patrick is. His eyes are heavy and tinged reddish, and he's walking sort of jerkily, unsure of his steps.

"You were smoking this morning." Ryan says, unaware that his steps are getting slower and slower.

"I was." Patrick replies, capable enough to say that. Ryan shrugs, footsteps slow and unsure, still moving backwards. He turns around and pulls open the door to the steps down to the basement, taking them two at a time to the stairs where he and Frank sit except it's not only Frank down there.

It's Frank and a girl.

She's got pale skin and black hair except this isn't a goth guy that looks like a girl named Gerard, it's an actual girl who has her head tilted up and her lips wet against Frank's, they're making out on those stairs and Ryan stares, stock still. He doesn't know why, has no idea, but he had this idea that Gerard and Frank were a thing. And now Frank is making out with a girl on the stairs. Ryan leaves before he can get himself into more shit, and Patrick isn't in the hallway, thank god, except god can't exist if Ryan's life is getting this overwhelming this fast.

Jesus christ.

--

"Why the hell are we doing a chemistry lab in earth science class?" Brendon asks Ryan. He's asked this question to Ashley, to the teacher, and he's repeated it maybe twice to Ryan, who is figuring out how to use the bunsen burner without lighting his sleeves on fire.

"Beats me." Ryan replies, twisting the collar at the bottom of the burner and pushing at the flint striker. They're in a chemistry lab room for more undisclosed reasons, science class isn't exactly planned out perfectly, and Brendon and Ryan have been assigned as lab partners to each other.

Ryan's actually sort of enjoying himself. This lab is exciting, they're lighting different parts of elements on fire to see what colors they produce and comparing their anions and cations to see how they relate to each other by period and group, except the thing is, Brendon is visibly exhausted and doesn't give a shit about this lab.