Page 51 of This is Me

“I said, I was thinking we could do some math homework,” Leroy said more clearly, a shy smile slipping onto his face as he opened his bedroom door.

This afternoon was going to be hell.

“Oh, fantastic. Sounds great,” I mumbled, moving past Leroy and walking into his room.

As soon as I entered his room, I could smell the difference. I hadn’t noticed how unclean the air had smelt before walking into Leroy’s bedroom as I suddenly got a breath of fresh air. I looked around the near-flawless room. The bed was made perfectly, and the floor was spotless. No clothes were laying on the ground or any rubbish in sight. In fact, it looked like no one had been in this room for years.

The bookshelves pushed against the side walls had all their books set up neatly and in alphabetical order. The television that sat atop the dresser that was next to the door had all its cords neatly wound up tight and making no cluttered mess. Even the posters on the walls looked like they had been put up after all the appropriate measurements had been made to make sure they all sat at the same height and were hung up to sit as straight as possible.

“The fucking patience,” I whispered to myself, hearing Leroy close the door behind me.

It had been a very long time since I had been in Leroy’s room.

“What was that?” Leroy asked, moving around me, throwing his bag on his bed and sitting beside it.

“Oh, I forgot how neat you were,” I said louder, walking a little further into his room, keeping my eyes off Leroy, and scanning around me.

“Oh… yeah. Andy found it a little annoying that I kept cleaning his room.” Leroy laughed nervously, and I heard him unzipping his bag and rustling papers around.

Letting out a little chuckle, I walked over to one of his posters—a blonde woman with a shockingly skimpy bikini on—and tried not to roll my eyes. I had no idea why I chose this poster to look at, all considering, but something caught my eye, and it definitely wasn’t the half-naked lady on it. It was the ever so slight tilt on the poster.

Everything else in Leroy’s room was flawless, except for this poster.

“What’re you doing, Pete?” Leroy suddenly asked, and I turned to look at him.

He was sitting on his bed with his legs cross, books and papers lying in front of him and his bag sitting at the end of his bed. A questioning look was on his face, and my God did he look adorable.

“I’m just looking…” my voice trailed off, as did my eyes, as they landed on the wall behind the door.

A significant dent was embedded in the wall along with what looked like plaster skirted around the outside of it as though a large hole had been covered up there.

“What happened there?” I asked, pointing over at the wall, turning to look at Leroy who shook his head.

“Oh, nothing. Just opened my door a little too hard,” he said quickly, with an awkward smile.

“A little?” I questioned, looking back at the large dent, and the even larger layer of plaster.

“Yeah. It’s nothing.”

Looking back at Leroy, I saw he was already filing through his books, his nose somewhat scrunched up, and strands of his curly hair were falling in front of his face. Thinking of the dent in the wall, I turned back to the ever so slightly tilted poster and peeled the blu tack from one corner just as Leroy yelled for me to stop.

“What—” I started, but stopped as the corner of the poster dropped, revealing a large hole in the wall. “The fuck.”

I felt Leroy gently move me out of the way as he pulled the corner of the poster back up and pressed down on the blu tack to make it stick.

“Leroy, what’s going on?” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Leroy didn’t answer straight away as he continued to press down on the corner of the poster with his back turned to me. It took a few more moments before he slowly moved to face me with a slanted smile and knotted eyebrows.

“Can we just… not talk about that?” He asked, and I slowly nodded, fighting against every fibre in my body.

Taking a deep breath, Leroy walked past me and sat back down on his bed, crossing his legs again and picking up his math book. Still fighting the urge to press on information about what was going on, I walked over to the other side of Leroy’s double bed and sat down beside him, facing him and crossing my legs, mirroring Leroy.

“So… math homework,” I said, clapping my hands together before taking my bag off my shoulders and pulling my books out.

“Yeah,” Leroy mumbled, looking at me and spinning himself around so that we were facing each other, our knees almost touching.

It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to move closer to Leroy. It was even harder not to stare at his perfect face and lips, to not tell him everything as we both sat so close to each other. I wanted nothing more than to pull him close to me and never let go.