22: Inertia

"I was accompanying my father for his chemo when I first met Linda. I mean, they're in this room together with other cancer patients and there are doctors injecting them and pretty much screwing with the veins on their arms. I was 14 and scared and really angry."

Okay, April. Focus. Focus. Please just focus. Right beside you is your Precious Person telling the story on how he met his ex girlfriend. You really shouldn't be thinking about adding another horse on the other side of his neck.

"And then there was Linda and her brother. They looked like they do want to stand out, what with Billy's beard and sleeve tattoos and Linda Pre-Chemo was like his female version, but without the beard. And then we started to hang out together and since I was the one who drove my father around, I had no friends and thus I had to be friends with them."

Must. Listen. 

Must. Not. Think. About. My little pony. Or Sherlock. Or the small beauty spot below his mouth. Or his skull tattoo. Or how Ryder and Linda (who was dead now, gosh, bless her) had kissed before. Or how that meant I had some of Linda's bacterias inside my mouth. Or-

"April? Are you with me?" 

Hell holy.

"Sorry," the voice came out as a whimper. Guilt washed over me and yet at the back of my mind, there were still a lot of things going on inside me. This was hard. Listening was hard. "Sorry, sorry. I'm trying."

"Try harder."

But I couldn't really do it. "How long have you dated Linda?"

"Only about three months," he bit his lip tentatively. "Most of the time she was undergoing lots of surgeries. The cancer started on her sinus and they removed it. Or they thought they removed everything..."

Oh no, he was going back to Present Linda and the cause of her death. I stared at Ryder's hands as I was at loss on what to say or what to do.

Fortunately, Ryder kept on talking. "Like, I wasn't even sure if it could be called 'dating'. She was just lonely and maybe a little bit desperate, and I was, too, because high school sucked bad and the trips to the hospital made me lose a lot of opportunities to make friends. It just... happened. And then now she's...she's gone? Just like that? Christ. Fuck. Do you know how hard it is to know that someone who used to be so close to you dead? It feels unreal. It feels bizarre. It's just..." he took one of my teddy bear and then buried his muffled scream into it. "I hate feeling like this."

And I didn't know what to do or what to say or if the way I wasn't looking at his face was offending him. We stayed on our respective place and I kept pulling on my nails because I also hated feeling like this. 

"D-Do you need me to hug you again?"

He spared me a glance. "Yes, please."

This time, I was the one who came closer to him. Ryder was completely still as I wrapped my arms around him. He was completely still as I moved his head so that he was leaning against me. Both of us were a tangle of frozen statue as the clock moved from 3:15 to 3:22. And then I surprised myself by saying, "Feelings suck."

There was a few seconds of pause, before then Ryder added.

"Death sucks, too."

"Do you want to go meet your father-"

"No."

Again, a tangle of frozen statue from 3:22 to 3:31.

"Ryder?"

"Hm?"

"Will smoking make you feel better? Just like when I feel better if I watch my DVDs?"

"Possibly."

"Okay," I said, and then I gently pushed Ryder away from me. I tiptoed to Quentin's room, and exhaled when I saw him already tucked inside his bed. Quentin kept his cigarette pack inside his school bag most of the time, and nobody checked his school bag, which explained why he was never found. But then since the incident a month ago*, I began to notice him slipping his cigarette pack into his underwear drawer.  I opened the wood slowly and then slipped my hand inside. After my fingers curled around a thick carton, I dashed away from his room.

But then I was too late.

"April?" 

Quentin wasn't quite asleep yet.

Please let him think I was looking for his underwear. Please let him think I was looking for his underwear. Please let him think I was looking for his underwear. I can live with the accusation of incestuous inclinations, but I can't possibly let him know that I've been letting Ryder live in my bedroom.

"You're going to smoke that?"

At the same time, Ryder opened my door. "Where are you going?"

Alas, no such luck.

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There were a lot of times when Quentin was so overcome with wrath that his capability to string words together into sentences got impaired. When that happened, he would only stand still, his eyes inhumanly widened, his nostrils flared and his mouth seethed and he looked like he could breathe fire. And then he would usually just go back to him room, slam the door shut, and then play really loud rock videos on youtube.

Unfortunately, Quentin didn't go to his usual road of sulking right now.

"What the fuck are you doing inside her room?!" 

Ryder froze up at the sight of him.

"What the-" on Quentin's eyes were a fleeting look that signaled his murderous thoughts. "Shit-fuck-fugghedaboudid!" and now his upper lip curled in disgust. "How in the fucking world-" another pause, as at this point, the skin on his face were pulled together into a grimace.

"Fuck," he finally gave up trying to communicate the emotional homicide that he was feeling.

"Look, I can explain," Ryder was somehow evangelically calm about it.

"What have you done to her, you fucking monster?!" 

"Nothing!" Ryder shouted this a little too loudly. "Nothing that she wouldn't want to do."

"And what the fuck do you mean by that?!"

"Exactly what I said! Nothing!"

Quentin's mouth never stopped shouting curses and profanities and every bad word known to the human being, I was actually quite sure that around five of them weren't even in English. As he did that, his eyes scanned around my room and he moved around and started moving things around, as if in search of something.

Both Ryder and me watched as Quentin slapped away all of my teddies from my bed, and then, in frenzy zeal, opened all of my drawers. When his eyes were set upon my study table, it only took him a second to remove any kind of items to clatter on the floor. He acted like a madman, my brother, and whatever he was looking for, he didn't find it, because his voice dropped into a ferocious growl.

"Where is it?"

"Where's what?!"

"Jesus fucking Christ!" there were bits of Quentin's saliva on my floor now."You didn't even use protection?"

I mean, I knew I was slow. Especially at the area that includes the human genitalia. It took me nearly a full minute to actually grasp what Quentin was insinuating.

To my surprise, though, Ryder looked as surprised as I was.

"You actually thought that I..." he mouthed 'Oh My God!' in a very slow motion. "Fuck no, I don't! We've never done it! Not even close!"

Quentin kicked open the door to my bathroom, and then grabbed Ryder's jar of wax from my sink. "For you to have yourhair products in Ap's room, you must be staying here a lot! Don't fucking lie to me, bastard."

"We haven't done it!" Ryder insisted.

"You're saying my sister's not good enough for you?"

"Hell no! I'd love to do it with her!"

Quentin's eyes narrowed as he clenched the wax jar hard. 

"You're offended at the idea of me having sex with April, and now you're offended at the idea of me not having sex with her. What the hell is wrong with you?" Ryder's whole body was so red I was afraid he might combust in any second. "And don't break my wax! That one's expensive!"

"You faggot," for Quentin to actually revert to old-school insults, he must have been pissed enough. He threw the jar towards Ryder's direction, and I may say that he was aiming for the breakage of Ryder's nose, what with the amount of strenght he mustered for that throw. 

Ryder caught the jar, thankfully. "We're not doing anything. Believe me, we're not. Look. Fully clothed."

Both my brother and Ryder now looked at me, and that was when I realized that I had been crouching at the corner of my room, my hands were covering my ears and my shoulder stiff from all the tension that had been piling up inside my body. 

And my breathing. Oh, my breathing.

Sometimes this happens. The difficulty of breathing, the tightness in my chest that bores a hole inside of me. My whole vision was cracked glass, and my body was in no condition to function other than stay there and try to breathe. My knees hurt, my hands hurt, and I felt the constant need to back away. Back away. Just back away. 

"April," I didn't know who was calling me. "April, hey, April!"

My head was spinning, my whole world was spinning, and as much as I tried to breathe, everything was constricted. My throat failed me and all I was left with was a series of whimpers. My stomach was lodged on my chest, and the more I tried to move, the more churned my insides felt. 

"Here," a glass of water was thrust into my hand and I immediately chugged.  Someone grabbed my by the shoulder and in just a moment, my body was encompassed with warmth. His hand was tapping my back several times, but only lightly. And then I could hear his voice, soothing and caring. "It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."

I didn't know how long we stayed like that, but Quentin finally let me go after I stopped my labored breathing.

"T-Thank you," I said to him once again.

"Vomit?"

I shook my head no.

Behind my brother, Ryder was staring at me, his eyes widened in horrified bewilderment. "What's wrong with her?"

"Panic attack." Quentin answered for me. "It happens from time to time."

That didn't assuage him at the very least. Ryder exhaled loudly, as if he hadn't been able to circulate the air all this time. His hand covered his mouth to conceal his expression, but I knew he was horrified by me. Disgusted.

"I thought she's having some.. I don't know. A heart attack," it came in a voice so low I could barely hear it.

"My sister eats healthy, man. She won't die of a heart attack."

I wanted to also factor the fact that I rarely, if ever, ate junk food, but speaking was still a chore for me to do. Everything else in the mind department had been better, though, because instead of picturing Ryder and Quentin going at each other's throat with a lance, I started to think about food and its correlation with health-related issues. 

Quentin helped me to make my bed and made sure that I was under the blanket. And then he talked some more with Ryder. He looked different, Ryder. Unsettled, proven by the way he kept staring at the floor. Nervous, with the way his hands were always on his pockets, possibly clenching and unclenching and leaving a real wet spot there after he took them out. I didn't know whether or not if his uneasiness came because of me or the death of Linda or both. 

Ryder crossing his arms while glaring at Quentin meant that the conversation was done. Quentin shooed him as he approached me. 

"So Ryder's been telling me that his family kicked him out."

"Um," I tried to take a look at Ryder, but Quentin positioned his hand where my gaze at. "Hello?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "That's why they haven't been fighting for a month now. It does a number to our daily table conversation, but I think we've all become better people because we gossip less, right?"

Quentin ignored my conception for humanity. "You've been letting him sleep here for over a month?"

The amount of disbelief that accounted on Quentin's voice nearly made me not want to answer him. But I nodded, because I owed him at least that much.

Quentin moved his head sideways as he mouthed a long, slow curse. "So that explains why you've been eating a lot lately."

"And why I take those long, long showers."

Quentin was quiet at this.

"We're not taking shower together, you dumbass. She's waiting for me to finish, and then she takes her turn," from behind, Ryder explained to him.

"Shut up, we agreed it's my turn to talk!" Quentin threw something at him. "We're going to need to talk to our parents about this."

"But... but what if Mom and Dad don't want Ryder to stay here?"

"Then it's time for him to go home, right?"

With that thrown, Quentin stood and walked away from my room. This left me and Ryder alone. I was on my bed, partly embarrassed with my sudden panic attack and worried about what might come tomorrow, and Ryder was still pacing around. 

"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything," he started. "For your panic attack."

I shrugged. "I-It's ok. The first time it happened, I genuinely thought that it's God's way of saying that He's dragging me down to hell."

"Does it happen often? Quentin looks like he knows what he's dealing with."

"Occasionally," I admitted. "I mean. When I'm stressed. And I was pretty stressed because I would never expect him to find out about you now."

"Believe me, I know. Tonight has been nothing but stressing for me. I feel like there's this blackhole around me that calls for any sort of problem."

"Linda's death, Quentin finding out, and tomorrow we're going to talk about this with my parents," I recounted everything.

"Yeah, and you panicking like that," he shook his head. "It's... it's scary. I thought I might lose you. I've never seen you acting like that before."

"I fainted the first time we talked," I reminded him.

That seemed to just dawn on him. "Right. Right, you did." He bit on his lip, but then words came out nonetheless. "But we're past that stage, right?"

"What stage?"

"The stage where you're not trusting me?"

"Yeah," I said, and then, I remembered something. "Um, and this is your cigarette."

Ryder accepted the carton box, his face unreadable as he stared intently at it. "You went to Quentin's room to get me cigarette?"

I nodded. "You said it'll possibly calm you down."

"My father is dying from lung cancer and on top of that, one of my bestfriends just died tonight. And you gave me cigarette because you think it might make me feel better?" he shook his head, but his face was amiable. His pupils dilated and were glossy. I couldn't exactly see him smiling, but his cheeks were upturned in a ghost of smile.

"I'm sorry I can't be a better girlfriend," I muffled, more to my blanket than to him.

"It's not your fault," he replied. "I mean, what you're doing is not really nice either, but it's not your fault."

Quentin coughed from behind the door.

"Anyway, since your brother is being such a huge..." another cough from Quentin. "Good Samaritan," Ryder's voice was forced. "He proposed that I sleep in his room tonight. We'll talk to your parents first thing in the morning."

I took his hand and hugged it, because all of a sudden I felt an impending pain of missing someone. He was still here, but he would not be here at the morning. He wouldn't be hugging me when I was cold because I hadn't gotten the chance to turn off the AC. I had to make do with my teddy bears, and after tasting heaven, I wasn't sure if I could lower my benchmark into mere furniture.

"I'll miss you," I said.

Ryder smiled, but it wasn't one of his dazzling smile. This smile was stipulated and filled with a lot of grief. "Yeah."

And somehow, I knew that he had decided to not sleep here again. The bad boy wasn't living in my room anymore.

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At Sunday morning, I woke up with my teeth chattering because of the cold. It took every single vestige of willpower to get out from the bed and even more willpower to take shower in that chilly wind. I thought I stared too long at Ryder's toothbrush as I brushed my teeth, and I kept staring for even longer at the empty space on the tiles where Ryder used to sleep. I used to lay my other blanket there as some kind of padding. But now I realized that it might not be comfortable at all.

"April, you up?" Quentin knocked on my door. "Ryder wants his toothbrush, he says it's in your bathroom."

"Just get it," I said. 

Quentin went in, but he looked all giggly and bouncy, like rabbit who just had too many carrots to eat. "Don't let him see the mirror."

I was still in the middle of gaping at him when he elaborated. "I drew on his face with a Sharpie. Just a little unibrow, nothing major. I just need to give him a message."

"What message?"

"That he's been a dick to you and the rest of us. Sleeping in the girl's room and then dating her behind my back? Dude, that's low brow."

"Hey Quentin, where's my toothbrush?" Ryder called out. He stepped out from Quentin's room, his face showed that he was totally unaware that his pretty eyebrows were now connected with a single thick black line at the center of his face. 

"Did I do a good job?" Quentin asked me without turning towards Ryder.

I tried my best to not laugh out loud, because Ryder would definitely notice that something was off. I presented him my thumb, and my brother arched his back, his chest on the air and his expression proud. "See you on The Hale's World War III, Sis."

"Or breakfast," I said.

As he turned around, I could see an obscenely huge and veiny penis drawn on his nape. 

Behind him, standing on his doorway, Ryder gave me a huge, mischievous grin.

I presented him my thumb, too. 

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*:  chapter 12: Ryder finding out Quentin has been smoking at the yard and then throwing the cigarette butts on Ryder's side of yard

Inertia means the tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged. I think this chapter will result in a lot of changes in the story. Ryder can't sleep in April's room anymore now that Quentin knows about it. April has her first panic attack in front of Ryder, and combined with her cluelessness, he's not reacting to that really well. And then Linda's death will very probably change a lot of Ryder, too. 

And thank you so much for all the support that you've given me! Haha. I really appreciate it. I love you guys for giving my story a try. If you think about it, I just made you read a very depressing story about a mentally handicapped person, cancer, death, and a broken person and disguise it as a humor story. Dang me. Like, as much as I want to have that crazy ex-girlfriend and jealous mothereffers and generally really mean people to bother them, I can't do it. Most of the time, those type of characters become one dimensional and I think the problem in each relationship lies on those partaking in that relationship themselves. 

Much love for you all!

Demonicblackcat <3