This is my first ever fanfic, so I decided to go with some fluffy stuff. Hope you enjoy!
The Pull
Adam leaned his head against his locker for a moment before opening it. He had not expected to run into Joan in the music room. He'd gone to get these LPs specifically to share with Iris. He wanted to share something special with her—let her into a little bit more of his life. Maybe he also wanted to prove to her that he had been cool before he met her, even if he did like wearing hoodies. He was trying to move forward with Iris, and then Joan appeared and he felt the familiar pull, like an ocean current that drew him off-course no matter how hard he fought.
He pulled a couple books out of the locker, and stuffed them in his bag. He hated the way she had this kind of hold on him. He resented it. With the LP in hand, he walked down the hall toward home.
Joan said she remembered when he played Miles Davis for her. He hadn't planned that ahead of time, like he was planning with Iris. It just happened. She was watching him work in his shed, and they were chatting, and when he found out she hadn't heard of Miles Davis, he stopped everything he was doing, dug up the CD from the pile in his bedroom, and played Blue Like Jazz on the old boom box in the shed. He didn't feel the need to find it on vinyl to prove he was artsy. He just wanted Jane to hear this music that meant so much to him.
Was his plan to share this record with Iris just a lame imitation of that moment he shared with Joan? Was he trying to force something, to construct some kind of experience that would convince him he was as close to Iris as he had been to Joan?
He couldn't even figure out if he had been close to Joan. He'd shared things with her about his mom that he had never shared with anyone—things he couldn't imagine sharing with Iris. But that only meant that he had let her get close to him. Had she ever let him get close to her? He'd never figured out what she thought of him.
As he walked the last few steps up to his house, he remembered Joan stopping him as he walked up the stairs from the basement music room. He remembered her white sweater, and the way her hair fell around her face. He remembered the look on her face when she realized that she couldn't even apologize for making fun of the vintage shirts Iris picked out for him without making fun of them again. Why did these stupid shirts bother her so much anyway? He couldn't decide if it was frustration with her, or frustration with the fact that her opinion still mattered so much to him that gave him the courage to confront her.
"Listen, what are we, Jane? I…I mean, we're not…together, but it…it seems like we are sometimes?"
And her response just frustrated him more.
"I don't know. Maybe it's because we were…for, like, a second."
Were they really together—even for a second? Adam had convinced himself that Joan never thought of him that way—that he had deluded himself into imagining more than was really there.
Adam dropped his bag on the floor in his room, balanced the LP on a clear corner of his desk, and flopped back on his bed. He couldn't even figure out which second she might be thinking of. Was it that one kiss at the science fair? Was it the few minutes on her sidewalk when she finally danced with him, and when she'd held him tighter than anyone ever had, except his mom? Was it when he got tickets to the White Stripes? Did she consider that a date? Did he wreck everything by inviting Iris to go with him instead?
No. Joan was the one who backed out of that one. It was yet another time when some new, spontaneous interest suddenly trumped all the plans she'd made with him. That was the thing—he never could figure out where he stood. She'd be so caring one minute, and look at him with those eyes that made him feel like anything was possible—like she believed in him, and he could do anything in the world, and the next minute she'd brush him off in favor of some new hobby, or some crazy scheme.
And through it all, she never let him in. She never let him help her with her crazy projects; she never really told him what was bothering her. He had trusted her with everything, and she never trusted him. He was sick of it. He was angry at her for not trusting him, and angry at himself for trusting her so much. He couldn't keep waiting for her to change. He needed to move on. He may not feel the same way about Iris—he certainly couldn't imagine sharing his mother's note or those old video tapes with her—but at least he knew that what he did feel was reciprocated. Iris paid attention to him. Iris made time for him.
He rolled over to reach the phone on his desk, and dialed Iris' cell phone.
"Hey…you wanna come over later? I decided that you can't go another day without hearing Miles Davis."