Unraveling [BXB]

Chapter 5

Chase spent the entire rest of his weekend trying to rid himself of the memory of what had happened, drowning his thoughts in chemistry facts and sheet music. To be fair, that wasn't out of the ordinary for him. He found comfort in the predictable nature of work. With school assignments, there was always a guide sheet or a textbook, where even if he didn't know the answer to a question, he knew he could find it. With music, everything he needed to know was laid out in front of him on the staff lines, cut up into measures. Everything in music was part of a perfect system, each note had its own place in the sonata, and every sound made sense when they were all put together. It was clean and magnificent, and that's why Chase loved it so much. Music was a language he understood, but feelings, and romance, and sex? Not so much. He liked the idea of love in the general sense. He had fun watching stupid romantic comedies, laughing at the tropes with Taylor, and imagining that one day someone could love him that much, so much that they memorized ridiculous monologues and made him feel like time would stop for a few extra moments, just to appreciate the better parts of life a little longer, to pause the constantly ticking metronome in his head. But when it came down to it, love, the nonfiction sort, tended to be difficult and complicated, it scared Chase to think that he could be so wrapped up in feelings for another person that the course of his life could change. He wasn't sure he wanted something so chaotic, it sounded too disruptive to him, and the thought of it frankly made him a bit nauseous.

So, when Monday came around, Chase was absolutely sure that he had purged every last semblance of thought about Wren from his head, and he would have nothing to do with him from that point forward. He fully intended to keep that plan, he was happy to forget about the whole thing, but then when he reached his locker, he found his sweater neatly folded with a note on top that was somewhat carefully, but still hastily torn at the edges.

Hey, I didn't want to give this to you in person because
I know you don't want any rumors starting, but I dried
it this morning and wanted to get it back to you.

Wren.

Chase quickly stuffed the note in his pocket and pushed the shirt further back into his locker. Not because he was worried it would smell like Wren's laundry detergent, obviously, he was just on a mission to grab his textbook and go to Math class.

"I can't believe you would do this to me." Chase spun around to see Taylor, his hair newly electric blue from its typical light blond.

"When did you dye your hair?"

"Over the weekend. Not the point. You went to a party, without me, and you didn't even tell me about it," Taylor said, crossing his arms. "I heard from Jaden, who heard from her boyfriend Daniel, who heard from his friend Greg that you were at Hayden's house and the cops were called and everything. That must have been insane, man. What happened?"

"It was pretty uneventful," Chase said, taking his hand out of his pocket to push his hair out of his face, though as he did, the note fell out and Taylor picked it up before he could. "Wait, d-"

"And you were there with Wren Hendrix...who's worried about rumors starting, why exactly?"

Chase's face flushed at the mention of his name, quickly grabbing the piece of paper back and ripping it up as Taylor just smiled in the way he always did when he knew for a fact Chase was hiding something. "It's...nothing happened, it was just a stupid party and I got drunk and-"

"Well, now I know something happened," Taylor said, crossing his arms as he leaned against his locker. "Wait, oh my god, did you hook up with Wren?"

Chase covered Taylor's mouth with his hands, his eyes wide as saucers. "Shut up!" he whispered, though his panic was hardly contained.

"Oh my god, you did," Taylor said, his words barely muffled by Chase's hands. "How far did you go? Was it good? Holy shit, does Trey know?"

"No, and I would prefer to keep it that way, so could we please stop talking about this in the open hallway?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course, this is just insane, I didn't even know he was into guys," Taylor said and Chase just shrugged to say he hadn't really known either, but apparently he was because he'd seemed to know what he was doing.

"Can we just get to Math?" Chase asked with a groan.

"I'm guessing it wasn't good then?" Taylor asked.

"Taylor!"

"Okay, I'm sorry. Let's go."

---

Taylor didn't ask about it too much more after that. Chase knew he had questions, but they'd probably come up during a sleepover in five months, and maybe Chase would know how to answer them then. He had a million questions himself that he had no idea how to answer, and he wasn't so sure that he'd like the answers much anyway.

However, Chase currently had a more pressing issue to deal with. He'd never realized how much he saw Wren on a daily basis until he was actively trying to avoid him, which was apparently next to impossible. He almost locked eyes with him twice in the hallway between classes, he tried his best not to stare at him across the room at lunch, and he nearly choked when he walked into his fifth-period study hall to see Wren sitting in the back with his legs propped up on the desk staring at his phone. Wren must've skipped every study hall since the beginning of the year because Chase was sure that he'd never seen him there before, but there he was, so Chase just took a seat in the front and distracted himself as much as he could with homework.

Whenever he was stressed, Chase made a to-do list, which was what he was doing now. He wrote down everything he needed to do that day, but it did little to help the annoying question buzzing in the back of his head about whether or not Wren was looking at him. At least the day was almost over, and then he was going to the pet shelter for a couple of hours before his shift started at the cafe and then he'd go home late and do his laundry before working on some homework in bed. Perfect. Everything would be fine if he could just keep himself busy.

Sure, he was beginning to understand how it must feel to be a house of cards on a shakey table, but he hadn't collapsed yet, and he was determined not to. He was stable enough if he could just keep himself away from Wren, and pretend it had all been a very strange dream. Chase had always been good at pretending everything was okay no matter what, he could just cut this problem up and put it away into little boxes like he had everything else. His overwhelming anxieties, his dozens of responsibilities, his parents' divorce, all of it just had to be organized and filed away accordingly. He didn't like to think about what would happen if a thread came loose in his carefully woven facade, or if he ran out of boxes and had to actually take one of those things out and dwell on it. Well, that was the nature of the house of cards after all. Like a knitted blanket, one loose thread threatened to unravel the whole thing, and what would Chase be left with then? That was a question he wasn't brave enough to ask. He didn't want to know, and a part of him hoped he'd never find out.

---

a/n: Hey guys, welcome back to another Friday update. I'm beginning to appreciate the backup chapters more and more because I have midterms in the next two weeks and about 15 assignments to do before then so my life has been kinda hectic. I'm getting through it though and I have a break coming up soon so I'm planning to devote more time to the book after Research Design & Analysis stops fucking me repeatedly (my professor said the workload is mostly front-heavy so the second half should be easier). Anyways, I hope everyone's having a good end of February and enjoy this chapter. Remember to take care of yourself and nourish your body and I'll see you next Friday!