We Make Mayhem [boyxboy]

Chapter Nine

Realizing you don't love someone isn't the same as knowing what the fuck to do about it.

Throughout my third period algebra class, I struggled to sort out my options from the haze of panic clouding my thoughts. Should I break up with her? Did I need some more time to think about it? Should I shove these feelings deep down inside and try to make it to the end of senior year so we could be each other's prom dates? What if Chloe cooled off in a few months, became her old self again? Was this just a bump in the road for us, or an insurmountable obstacle, the kind that made you turn the car around and cancel the trip?

Luckily, fourth period came around—art with Ms. Warren, the best teacher in the world.

She looked up from the book she was reading at her desk and grinned when I walked in, extending her knuckles for a fistbump.

"Ry-o! What's up, man?"

"Nothing much." I walked up and we fist-bumped. "How was your summer?"

"It was fantastic! So many amazing gallery shows this year, it was unreal. Oh, hi—it's Noah, right?"

Noah had just walked in, preemptively ruining everything.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "You're Ms. Warren?"

"Yeah! It's nice to finally meet you. Take a seat wherever."

Noah looked at me. "Where would you like me to sit, Riley?"

I could only stand there, blinking, wondering what the fuck he was playing at, and goddamn it, Noah knew he had rattled me. He tilted his head to the side and smiled as if he was totally innocent.

"Wherever the fuck you want," I said through gritted teeth.

I turned my back to him and tried to make it look like I wasn't carefully listening to the soles of his shoes scuffing the floor, trying to decipher where he was going to sit. Because it mattered, for some reason.

"Um... everything okay?" Ms. Warren asked.

"Peachy," I said.

The bell rang and I took my usual seat. Noah was sitting at the long table across from mine, directly in my sightline. Fantastic.

Ms. Warren's class was my happy place. Aside from the A/V studio, her classroom felt like an insulated box where the outside world felt far away. Ms. Warren was all about expressing feelings and exploring ideas, no matter how taboo. Her classes were multi-disciplinary: if you were a painter, you didn't just take a class with other painters. There were cartoonists, silk screeners, graphic designers, and ceramic artists, as well as sculptors and performance artists. Some were entirely committed to their medium and others loved trying new mediums and learning from other classmates. It was a wonderfully weird, eclectic place.

I mostly sketched in class, just to relax, but when I wasn't too shy to 'fess up to it, I would describe myself as an auditory artist. The more practical expression of that was what I did in the A/V studio, recording and engineering other peoples' content, but I secretly wanted to get into field recording, go up into the mountains and set up recording equipment for hours to capture the sound of the wind in the trees and birdsong, or the dull roar of waves at the beach, or the rushing Capilano River. Not even just nature sounds—I wanted to sit in a Parisian café and record the clinks of mugs and the music and the snatches of conversation, or an amusement park to catch the whooshes of rides and carnival music and distant screams. I would put them online for people to enjoy while they were studying or working or whatever, anytime they needed to escape or relax.

Ms. Warren's class was the best place to dream about crazy projects like that.

After the bell, she welcomed us by telling us a story about her summer trip to Tofino, a remote town on the west coast of Vancouver Island, famous for surfing.