Prompt (s): “I just want a hug” & “You’re like a giant cinnamon roll.”
Summary: After receiving a bad grade on a test you’d worked hard studying for, you are (naturally) upset, but thank god for your boyfriend, Peter, whom always comforts you.
Warning (s): None.
a/n: I got two different requests that were very similar, so for the sake of not sounding like a broken record, I combined them 🙂
+ + +
The cherry red letter ‘F’ had
been staring you in the face, taunting your very subconscious, since
early that morning. It was like one of those tacky neon signs that
you see outside fast food joints and movie theatres. Insistent.
Annoying. There. Like, all the time.
When you had walked into your
first period history class, truth be told, you had been feeling
pretty good. School in general- with the overwhelming expectations
of your teachers to complete every assignment, essay, and worksheet
handed to you – had been pretty stressful as of late, but other
than that, you’d been alright. That morning, you hadn’t missed your
train, hadn’t spilled any part of the breakfast you’d been forced to
eat on the go while trying to get ready on your new dress, and the
sun was beginning to make an appearance over the busy streets of
Queens. It had all felt like a new horizon, as if a second wind was
starting to bleed itself into your veins, mixing in with the caffeine
you had streamlined into your system while waiting expectantly at the
train stop that morning. Creating a cacophony of pleasant feelings in
your soul, you had felt unstoppable, as if you were a superhuman on
the verge of saving the world, just like the Avengers or even Queens’
very own hero, Spiderman.
In retrospect, you should have
known the other shoe would drop at any moment. No one’s life could
be that perfect.
A mere five minutes into the
lesson, while you were still absentmindedly whispering to your best
friend in the back row about how your respective weekends had been
(though making sure to discretely avoid detection), your history
teacher, Mr. Adams, had announced that he finished grading the bulk
of last week’s quiz and would be handing them back that morning. You
had felt confident enough- and why wouldn’t you have been? Though
history and social studies had never been your strong suit, you had
been working hard the past semester, clocking countless hours both at
night and on weekends, desperately trying to hammer whatever
information you could into your long term memory. Going into the
quiz last week, you felt pleased that you were able to answer almost
every question set to you with relative ease. There had been some
multiple choice problems (which were always your favourite), short
answer, and a small essay. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t faced
before, so with a confident spring in your step, you had turned in
your paper at the end of the class period with an almost giddy
expectancy in your chest. You would do well on this, would make up
for all the times you had submitted an assignment or paper at the
last minute, after forcing yourself to stay up until inane hours to
complete it, the scent of the much needed coffee heavy on your second
day sweatshirt.
But it hadn’t been enough.
If for some reason you were
having a bad day, or you were just too arrogant to see your
shortcomings in studying, you didn’t know. All that you knew for
sure was you had been expecting to see an almost perfect mark on the
paper Mr. Adams placed before you, but instead, you were met with
utter disappointment, for you received an F, which was far too low in
the alphabet for the amount of work you had logged studying for the
test. It was the absolute worst mark any student could garner.
Immediately, you could feel
the early onset of tears burning the corner of your eyelids, but you
had blinked quickly to avoid them falling on your ruined test, though
perhaps it would have been cathartic to blot out the failure with
salty tears. The hands that had grasped the paper with white knuckles
shook and you had to place the test on the desk to force them to
cease, flipping the paper over so your classmates couldn’t see your
mark of shame. You wished the floor would have just opened up and
swallowed you, because you didn’t know if you could have taken the
invasive and prying questions of your peers. You knew they would all
talk about the marks they got at lunch, as they always did. They
would gush in high pitched voices of excitement about the A’s and A
minuses they had received, all of them talking swiftly of how they
might be the next Einstein or something.
Okay, you might have been
exaggerating with that one, but whenever you got a bad grade, it
always seemed that way at the time.
No, you couldn’t face them,
you just couldn’t. So you skipped lunch, choosing to spend far too
much time holed up in the corner stall of the girl’s bathroom, where
you could be in peace and play with your phone, far away from the
curious questions of the rest of the school. You didn’t even answer
your best friend’s texts, the ones that were laced with concern,
asking you where you went, were you okay? She probably knew quite
well where you were, as she herself had found you here on other
occasions when you had been upset about something, but you were
infinitely grateful that she somehow sensed you needed to work things
out on your own. You would thank her for this later, you reasoned,
when it had all blown over.
It wasn’t a complete truth
that you wanted to be by yourself, however. To be quite honest, you
wished your boyfriend, Peter, the one who had helped you study for
the failed test (bless his soul, he tried, but you were a very
frustrating person to aid) was here with you. He, even in his
infinite awkwardness, would know exactly what to say to you. He
always did, always knew what you needed to hear every time, which
only made you love him more.
But he wasn’t, because even
though both Peter and you lived in Queens, you went to school in
Brooklyn, so you couldn’t see him as often as you would if the pair
of you attended the same high school.
With a forlorn sigh, you
pulled your legs in tighter around yourself and rested your chin on
your knees. You had to handle this alone for now, you told yourself,
and you would be okay in the end.
It might be helpful to mention
that you didn’t often believe what you told yourself.
+ + +
You didn’t see Peter until
late that night. After you got home from school, you went straight
to your room, trying to avoid the prying questions of your mother or
older siblings. They knew you had a big history test that day, as it
had been all you could talk about for a week. They were almost as
anxious as you were to find out how you did, and when you had been
preparing, your mother and older brother had tried their best to help
you with the material.
It wasn’t until you finally
got into your room and closed the door did you let the pent up tears
fall. You tried not to make any noise lest you alert everyone in the
house to your sorrow, so you flopped on the bed, forcing your pastel
pink comforter to take the brunt of the abuse from your sadness.
Every limb in your body felt heavy and bruised, as if your entire
being was crumbling under the weight of all that had happened that
day. You felt as if you could just curl up in a ball and sleep for
weeks, you were that exhausted. The coffee you had slugged back that
morning to stay awake after an all-nighter of studying for that
blasted test was catching up with you, lulling you into a veritable
coma. You didn’t want to fight. You were far too tired to stay
awake, so you let your eyelids gently flutter close, allowing the
river of sleep to overtake you in one powerful wave.
+ + +
You awoke some time later to a
peculiar scratching noise. Cracking your eyelids open- which took
some effort given that they were sticky and swollen shut from your
earlier crying spiel- you felt disoriented for half a second before
the memory of everything came rushing back to you. You had almost
forgotten (which was a mercy), but how could you blot out the shame,
the humiliation, of your day? The true weight of it all hung heavy
on your cranium, like a headache that wouldn’t cease no matter how
many painkillers you took.
Lifting your head, the fabric
of the pillow underneath you still damp with tears, you noticed that
the weird noise was still persisting, now accompanied by gentle taps
to the window pane, as if the perpetrator was trying to get your
attention while still attempting to be discreet from the rest of your
household’s occupants.
Furrowing your brow, you sat
up and scooted over to the end of your bed, where the window in
question was located. You steeled a breath, reaching out to pull up
the burgandy curtain that covered the window. You didn’t know why
your hand hesitated on the cord, perhaps something inside you
wondered about what you would find on the other side. Like, who in
their right mind would be at the window overlooking a five story drop
to the ground? You hoped to god it wasn’t some creepy person who had
perilously traversed your fire escape.
But it wasn’t, and when you
truly got a look at who was at your window, you couldn’t contain the
involuntary gasp that rose in your throat.
It was your boyfriend, Peter,
holding onto the metal of the fire escape with white knuckles, his
whole frame shivering from the cold air. You quickly unlatched the
window, gesturing furiously for him to come inside.
“Oh my god, Peter,” you
sighed, stepping aside as he awkwardly attempted to manoeuvre his
lanky frame through your small window. “What the hell were you
doing out there? Did you climb up?” You shot a look out the
window to the substantial drop below onto the dimly lit concrete. If
he had fallen….you didn’t know what you would have done.
Peter ran a hand through his
dark brown hair, mussing it up into soft peaks all over his head. “I
wanted to see you,” he quietly replied. “Your best friend told
me that you wouldn’t answer her texts. She was worried.”
So that explained why you
hadn’t heard any more from your best friend since school. She must
have sent Peter to check on you for the both of their sakes. You’d
almost forgotten that you had given him her number in case of
emergencies. It had always seemed like a good idea- you didn’t know
what could happen and it would be reassuring to know that she could
alert him if anything happened to you while at school- until now.
“So… how are you doing?”
Peter asked. He precariously perched on the arm of the small, beat
up easy chair smushed into the corner of your room. You sighed,
flopping back onto your bed, your palms folded over each other on
your stomach.
“Alright,” you lied
smoothly, not making eye contact. The air in the room had suddenly
grown tense- so thick you could cut it with a knife- and silence
reigned supreme for a long moment.
“Are you sure?” he
pressed. You realized that although he could see right through you
(Peter always did, another thing you both loved and hated about your
boyfriend), he was waiting for you to bring it up. He never wanted
to pressure you or make you uncomfortable by forcing you to talk
about something you weren’t quite ready to express in words yet. You
sighed again, this time for longer, as you breathed out all the
stress from earlier slowly through your nose, steeling yourself to
spill it all. Perhaps it would be cathartic, you reasoned. This was
what you thought you needed before, to rant to Peter about all that
had happened that day.
You sat up suddenly in bed,
your hair sticking out at all angles. Your eyes still felt swollen
and you knew the were probably as red as the stripes on your
comforter, so it was an extra reassurance that your boyfriend didn’t
immediately comment or make a fuss over them when he entered.
Slipping your legs slowly off of the mattress, you stood up.
“No,” you started,
refusing to meet Peter’s dark brown eyes with your own. “No, I’m
not sure. Today’s been horrible. I just want a hug.” You
held your arms out in a welcoming gesture and Peter was all too happy
to gather you into a tight embrace without a word. You closed your
eyes as you leaned on his chest, relishing the soothing sound of his
steady heartbeat as you did so, the gentle beating a true testament
to all your boyfriend stood for. Steadiness. Love. Acceptance.
Because you did, you knew.
You definitely loved him in a way that was hard to express in words.
You adored every part of him, from his fondness for science (which he
would often eagerly talk to you about for hours), to his inherently
dorky nature (which made him one of the kindness and most caring
people on the planet), to even the awkward demeanor he adopted on
occasion (especially that first day, when he had finally mustered up
the courage to ask you out).
“You’re like a giant
cinnamon roll,” you murmured absentmindedly after a moment,
nestling your head even deeper into his chest. He was still wearing
the thick, black hoodie he had on when he entered, which made the hug
that much warmer and more comforting. The fabric smelled like the
outdoors, scents of smoke, smog, and a slight tinge of sweat from his
delicate climb clinging to it. His chest was firm with lean muscle
that betrayed his stereotypical geeky stature; all the hours of
working out he had been doing were paying off.
“What?” he laughed, one
hand lazily stroking your hair in that way he knew calmed you down.
“You’re
like a cinnamon roll. You know, soft, and sweet….and always
there for me when I’m feeling down.”
“Well, that’s an interesting
analogy, but I’ll take it.”
You could feel his eyes on you
then, concerned eyes that wanted to ask what thoughts were running
through your mind, what was truly bothering you, but didn’t have the
words to express it. It was no use, anyways. You suddenly didn’t
have enough energy to stand anymore let alone explain the lengthy
tale of what exactly was wrong. You only wanted to be right here in
the moment, feeling your boyfriend’s strong arms around you.
“Can you lie with me for
awhile?” you asked tentatively. You knew Peter would have to be
getting back to his apartment soon- Aunt May would be distraught with
worry if she somehow found out he was out on the streets this late at
night- but you wanted to draw out the moment for a while longer.
He nodded silently, a genuine
smile gracing his face. You grabbed his right hand, intertwining
your fingers with his, Peter giving your palm a comforting squeeze as
you led him backwards onto the bed. This was were you belonged, you
decided. Peter was your person, the best friend masked in a lover’s
disguise. With him, you felt at home.
Toad's Cave 