Mush stared blankly at the textbook in front of him. He'd been staring at it for the past thirty-six minutes and yet the problems weren't getting any easier... or solving themselves, for that matter, which is what he really wanted them to do. He dropped his head to the pages just as the bell rang, sighing heavily.
He sat up, closing the book and shoving it angrily into his backpack. He was going to fail this class and he knew it; not that it was his fault, because algebra completely eluded him. Most subjects completely eluded him, in fact, seeing as he wasn't smart in any sense of the word. He used to be, but not anymore... he couldn't focus on anything since he started high school, and it only got worse as he got older. Honestly, the only thing he was really good at was soccer, because he could throw himself into it and forget about everything else, so there were no distractions and he was just plain good at it. Well, he was good at soccer and at singing, but he didn't think anybody really needed to know that second part.
Grabbing his backpack, he stood up and started to shuffle out of class.
"Mister Meyers," the teacher said from his desk. Mush turned around, looking at him. "I'd appreciate it if you'd do some work in my class, rather than just daydreaming. I hear that it really cuts down on homework time."
"Sorry, Mister Seitz," he muttered quietly, and headed for the door again, but then stopped and turned back around. "I wasn't daydreaming, though."
"Then what were you doing, Jason? Trying to learn algebra by way of osmosis?" Mr. Seitz leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Well, see, I... um, I'm kind of having some trouble in this class..."
"So I've noticed from your tests." Mr. Seitz sighed. "I was just waiting for you to say something, because I didn't want to offend you. Tell you what. How do you feel about a tutor?"
Mush shrugged. "I guess that would be okay. I mean, I'd have to work around my soccer schedule, but... yeah, a tutor might help."
"Okay. I'll see what I can do for you."
"Thanks, Mister Seitz." Mush walked out of the classroom, feeling a little bit better, and headed towards the locker rooms to change for his soccer game.
--
They were playing their arch rivals today, William Randolph Hearst High School, and Mush was a little nervous, because rumor was that they had a really good team this year. He did his best to keep his focus during warm-ups, but it got to him when he saw the opposing team tromping across the field. His teammate kicked the ball to him and he kicked at it, losing his balance and sending the ball into the stands.
He jogged over to retrieve it, shaking his head. "Sorry," he said to the person who handed the ball back to him.
"That's okay. Didn't hurt that bad." The person laughed, and Mush looked up to reveal a really good-looking boy with a bright, wide smile and one sparkling blue eye, the other eye covered, though not unattractively so, by a beaten-up leather eye patch. He found himself staring for a moment. "Good luck."
"Huh?" Mush realized he was incapable of any other form of coherent speech.
"In the game. Good luck." The boy laughed again and Mush nodded, wandering off with the ball. He felt a weird churning in his stomach that he sometimes felt when he saw a boy like that, but chalked it up to pre-game jitters and went back to warming up.
--
"So, Jason," Mr. Seitz said after class the next day, "this is Zach Erickson. He's in advanced algebra, and he has agreed to be your tutor, if that's alright with you."
The boy introduced as Zach smiled and greeted him, and Mush looked up from his shoes to see the same eye-patch-wearing boy from the soccer game the night before. He smiled shyly back.
"You two can figure out a schedule that suits you both. But I have to get to the staff meeting, so I will see you on Monday." Mr. Seitz picked up his briefcase and walked out.
"So, uh," Zack said, shrugging. "When do you want to work together?"
"Well..." Mush shoved his hands in his pockets, looking around the room. "I have soccer practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday... and sometimes I have games during the week but most of the time they're on Saturdays. So I guess any day that isn't one of those days."
Zach laughed. "Alright, how about Wednesdays and Fridays, and if we need to, we can do some extra work on Sundays."
"Okay." Mush nodded.
"So, why don't we trade numbers and we can keep in touch." Zach pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and Mush followed suit. "It's Jason Meyers, right?"
"Uh, yeah... but... everybody just calls me Mush."
"Why?"
"I'm not sure, really."
"Mush it is, then." Zach laughed again – his whole face lit up when he laughed, Mush noticed – and then rattled off his phone number. "It's funny, I have a really weird nickname, too. Everybody calls me Kid Blink. Or just Blink."
Mush shrugged and finished putting the number in his phone, then said his own number, which Zach entered. "At least yours make sense."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, y'know, 'cuz you only have the one eye and stuff..."
Zach gasped. "I only have one eye?" He put his hand to his face, looking truly panicked.
Mush's eyes widened. "I... I... sorry, uh..."
He started to laugh. "Calm down." He clapped Mush on the shoulder, grinning. "I just like making fun of people, especially when they're overly sensitive about my eye."
Mush felt his stomach do that weird churning thing again when Zach touched him, and quickly ducked away. "Um. Okay. I... I have to go. I'll see you later." He hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder and headed for the door.
"Wait!"
He turned around. "What?"
"Are we doing this tonight?"
Mush shrugged. "I don't know."
"Well, are you doing anything?" Zach picked up his backpack and walked toward Mush.
"No, I guess not." Mush dug his keys out of his pocket and started walking towards the parking lot, Zach beside him.
"So why don't we?" Zach smiled, pulling his own keys out. "I mean, I've got nothing to do tonight, either, so we might as well."
"Um. Okay." He felt his heart pounding. Why? Why was it doing that? What was it about Zach that made him feel all jumpy and nervous?
"Your house?" Zach stopped outside the door, waiting for Mush to answer.
"I... I guess so." He shrugged.
"Okay. Where are you at?" Mush rattled off the address, looking out towards his car. He kind of wanted to run to it and drive off as fast as he could. "Alright... well, how about, say, five? That'll give me time to shower and stuff."
"Yeah, I guess. My mom's out of town, so it'll just be us there... um, you could stay for dinner if you wanted to, unless you've got like a family thing..."
"No, I don't. That sounds good, though, if it's not too much trouble."
"Okay. Well... I'll see you around five, I guess."
--
At four-fifty-two, Mush's doorbell rang. He jumped up from the couch and practically ran across the house to the door. He wasn't sure why he was so excited about Zach – Blink – coming over, but for the past two hours, he'd barely been able to keep still in anticipation. He didn't know if it was excitement or anxiety, but either way, he knew he didn't like it very much.
He swung the door open, and Blink grinned at him. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," Mush replied, stepping aside. "Come on in."
Blink walked into the house, looking around. "You ready to do some math?" He laughed.
Mush laughed, too. "Yeah."
"So you do smile." Blink smirked.
"On occasion." Mush shrugged. "You want a soda or something or eat or anything?"
"No, I'm okay, thanks." Mush nodded, and Blink looked over at the table, covered with random art projects. "What's all this?"
"Oh, um, my mom, she's an artist." He shrugged, looking over the various products of his mother's late-night insomnia.
"So where do you want to do it?"
"Huh?" Mush looked up, caught by that blue eye.
"Tutoring. Where do you want to do it?"
"Oh. Well... seeing as some of these aren't dry yet, we'd better not move them. My room, maybe? I have a desk in there and stuff."
"Sounds good."
"It's, um, it's this way." Mush headed down to the end of the hallway, turning into his room.
Blink followed. "So, how come Seitz offered to get you a tutor? I mean, he doesn't do that for anybody."
"Probably because I'm, like, one step up from being retarded." He cleared the clothes off his desk chair and dumped them into his closet, then plopped down on his bed. "And nobody wants to be mean to the mentally disabled."
Blink sat in the chair, facing him. "Something makes me doubt that's true."
"No, really, I mean, have you ever actually seen anyone being mean to a retard?"
Blink laughed. "That's not what I meant, Mush." He shook his head, still laughing. "What I meant was I doubt that you're stupid. I bet you're actually really smart."
"You just have to say that 'cuz you're my tutor and you have to be nice to me 'cuz you don't want me to hate you," Mush said glumly.
Blink chuckled. "No, I'm only nice to people I actually like... I don't care if people hate me." He shrugged. "So... math?"
Mush sighed and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his chin on them. "Math."
--
"So, I still don't get it. What the hell is a hydrant, and why does it need a formula?" Mush blinked at the numbers and symbols Blink had written on a piece of paper, crinkling his nose.
"Quadrant. The quadratic formula. It's so you can figure out the roots of a quadratic equation." Blink tried explaining it again, but Mush just zoned out.
He watched Blink's mouth move... his lips looked really soft, and his teeth were so perfect and white. His mouth was so... pretty. Even his tongue seemed kind of pretty, the way it was so pink and set off by his teeth and Mush just wanted to, just once... No.
He moved up to the rest of his face. The way his eyebrows were knitted together in concentration as he tried to explain the formula to him, the way his right eye flicked fast across the page of the math book as he read the definition for the eight thousandth time. The bright blue color of his eye was so mesmerizing... His stomach churned again.
"Mush."
Silence.
"Mush."
"What?" Mush shook his head dizzily, blinking.
"Are you okay?" Blink smirked.
"Yeah, why?"
"You've been staring at me for, like, five minutes." He laughed a little. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, sorry... it's just, I was... never mind." Mush bit his lip, feeling that familiar and ultimately uncomfortable stirring in his jeans that always accompanied that weird churning, and drew his knees closer to his chest in hopes that Blink wouldn't notice. It wasn't like this hadn't happened before, after all, he was seventeen, and he heard in health class all the time that it was natural... but it wasn't natural for it to happen when you were looking at another boy.
"What?" Blink leaned back in the chair, setting the math book in his lap. "Wondering what's under the patch?"
Mush shook his head.
"It's okay. Everybody's curious about it and I don't even care anymore. I've been showing it off since, like, second grade. You wanna see it?"
"No... that's not it. I was just... nothing. Sorry."
"Well, what's wrong, then? You look really uncomfortable." Blink put a hand comfortingly on his knee and Mush nearly screamed.
"It's nothing." He bit down harder on his lip, hoping the hardness would just go away. He sighed. "It's just... I saw you at the soccer game yesterday and you... and you're... ugh. Never mind."
"Mush," Blink said, picking up the math book and setting it on the desk, and then leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I know it sounds weird... but... are you attracted to me?"
Mush closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to his knees. "I don't... maybe... I'm not supposed to be."
"Why not?" Blink arched an eyebrow. "Mush, look at me."
He lifted his head, still chewing on his lower lip. He looked like a lost little boy, and Blink smiled a little. "Are you?" Blink said.
"You're a guy. I can't be attracted to you."
"Why?"
"Boys don't find other boys attractive. Boys... boys like girls."
"But I think you're attractive."
Mush shook his head. "This has been happening a lot lately. But not so much as since I saw you."
"It's okay, Mush."
"No, it's not. It's so distracting. I can't even pay attention in class if there's a guy who's even mildly good-looking around. Or if a guy... any guy, really... so much as looks at me or talks to me. I can't focus on anything for the rest of the day because I feel so weird and... and... kind of good."
"I know how you feel. I went through the same thing."
Mush looked at him as if he finally understood. "Really?"
"Yeah. And it's okay. You have to realize that. It's okay to feel like this, and it's okay to be who you are, even if the person that you are likes guys instead of girls." Blink smiled at him, and Mush smiled back.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Blink said, and he leaned forward and kissed him.