"So I'm totally gonna fail this," Henry said, slamming his history book closed. "Why did I take AP? Like... dumbest decision ever."
Natalie shrugged, busy reading. Henry flopped onto his stomach, rolling a few inches closer to her. She was chewing the end of her pencil in concentration, not looking at him. They were laying on the floor of her bedroom, and he put his arm around her. Nothing. So he tried kissing her.
"Ow," he said as she shoved him away.
"We have a test tomorrow that neither of us are ready for!" she said, disgruntled. "We want to do well, don't we?"
He just raised his eyebrows.
"You know what helps me study?" he asked.
"Pot? Or sex?" she said sarcastically.
"Hey!" he said. "I've barely come on to you today, like, at all. But yeah... I'm thinking that I'm stressing for this test too much."
"Yeah. You're really killing yourself," Natalie rolled her eyes.
"Shut up!" he said. "So I think I'll take the edge off."
"Before you get all high and stinky, can you go into the kitchen and get me a red bull?"
"Sure."
"Help yourself to anything," she said as he got up and left her room.
Secretly, she smiled. He was like, almost cool. And he hadn't run off when he found out about her mom a few weeks ago, which was seriously a plus.
"I'm blue, daba dee daba dye, daba dee, daba dye, daba dee daba dye..." Henry murmured to himself as he went down the stairs. He walked down the hallway and went into the kitchen. "Oh. Hey, Miz Goodman," he said. "Nat just wanted something to drink."
"No problem," she said dreamily.
Natalie might think her mom was nuts and horrible, but Henry liked her. She was very... chill and off the hook. Like sometimes she said the weirdest things, and it was totally awesome. Last weekend she'd come home with takeout from like, every Chinese place within ten miles and made them try all the different kinds of veggie fried rice. Who wouldn't want a mom like that?
He opened the fridge and looked around until he found the red bulls. He pulled two out of the plastic rings, and was about to shut the fridge when Mrs. Goodman started talking again.
"I bought some lunchmeat, hun," she said.
"Hmm?" Henry said, who hadn't been listening and didn't catch what she was saying.
"Oh, not you Henry. Help yourself, though."
He shuffled his feet awkwardly. "Ok." He was about to try and leave when she turned in the direction of the sink, about four feet away from him, and said something else.
"Practice ran late tonight, huh? Dad and I will be there on Friday, you guys had better play well." She laughed at what had obviously been a joke.
Henry really, really wanted to leave now, but didn't want to seem rude. God, why wasn't Nat here when he needed her? Talking to your girlfriends parents alone wasn't fun anyway, even when they weren't being... weird.
"Henry, Natalie says you like music. Have you ever heard Gabe's band play? They're really very good. He plays the guitar."
"Of course he does," Henry said, almost rolling his eyes. Natalie said her brother was perfect, in her mom's eyes. So, like duh the kid played the guitar- probably wasn't that good, either. Henry thought it was super annoying how almost every guy thinks they can play guitar, just because they can strum. "Electric or acoustic?"
"Oh. Both!" she said. "He's been taking lessons since he was in the fourth grade."
"Whoa there," Henry said, rolling his eyes. Like playing both kinds of guitar- they were the same after all- made you cool. "But he doesn't bother with that tab stuff, right? He reads music?"
"Oh yeah. Really, I always look at he and Natalie's music and I have no idea what it says- honestly, I can't imagine how they do it! It just looks like gibberish to me, but they seem to be able to read it like words. I don't know how Dan and I ended up with such musical children, neither of us had a lick of training in our lives."
"It gets easier once you learn. You have to practice it like anything else," Henry said conversationally. "I was in piano lessons in first grade, and that's when they taught me to read music. Like, the staffs are pretty easy once you learn. They use those things... numeric devices? No, fail..."
"Pnumonic devices," Mrs. Goodman volunteered.
"Yeah, those!" he said, smiling. "They make learning the notes when you're a little kid so much easier."
"I'd imagine so," Mrs. Goodman said. She turned her head to the space by the sink and appeared to hear something. Henry, for some reason, didn't mind so much. Everyone at school was like, all the same. It was kinda cool to see someone different. And her world couldn't be that bad, could it?
"That's a wonderful idea!" she said, smiling. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, Henry?"
"Um. Sure," he said nervously.
"Natalie would love it for her boyfriend and her brother to get along. Gabe, when does your band practice this week?"
Silence.
"Henry, you should go over there and play with them a little, I'm sure it would be fun. They'd love you, I've heard you and Natalie play together, you're very good."
"Wow, thanks!" he said, smiling. "You really think so? I mean, I just play on the side a little."
"Oh, sure! Why don't you go to see their band play on Friday? Natalie was going to go any way, we were going to go as a family to see Gabe play, but you two could go together. They play- what kind of music is it you play, honey?" she asked, turning away again. "Right! They're playing Pink Floyd and some of their originals at their concert. God, I used to love Pink Floyd..."
"I don't know..." Henry said. "I always thought their drugged-out stuff was pretentious. Like, it's what everyone else was doign at the time, but they thought it made them special or something."
"Oh, what do you know? God, I must have been in middle school when I first got into them... You had to be around when they first got popular," she defended.
"Sure," Henry said, rolling his eyes. "Next it'll be the Beach Boys..."
"No, I was never into them," she said, not realizing it was a joke. "But do you think you can come? I'm sure Nat would love if she didn't have to sit with her parents!"
"No." Henry turned and saw Natalie standing in the doorway. "We can't."
She looked furious. She glared at her mother, and then at Henry.
"Sorry, I've taken forever," he said, gesturing the the red bulls and hoping to distract her before she got mad at him. "Let's go finish studying."
"I'm not really in the mood," she said stiffly.
"C'mon, Nat."
"Just go away, will you?" she said.
"Natalie, don't be rude," her mom corrected.
"Mom, I seriously don't want to listen to you right now... And Henry, I wasn't kidding."
He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, and left the kitchen.
"Mom, seriously? Did you have to do this in front of him?" Natalie said. She didn't wait for her mom to respond before she was out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom. Henry was in there, putting his books in his backpack.
"I said, get out!" she said.
"Nat, just getting my books," he said, treading carefully and trying not to upset her. "But really, it didn't bother me."
"I know it didn't!" she said, very upset now. "Can't you see why that's a problem? Just... go away, ok?"
"I don't want to fight-"
"Then please go home," she said, more gently. "I don't want to fight either... but we will if you don't... I just want to be left alone, ok?"
"OK," he said. "Really. It wasn't a big deal."
"Sure," she said.
"Pick you up tomorrow?"
She nodded, and turned away.
"See ya."
As soon as he left, Natalie threw herself onto her bed. So, Henry comes in to her family and talks to her mom like, four times. Then he can sit down at the kitchen table, see right into her world, and have a better conversation with her than Natalie's had in her entire life. Nat turned over and closed her eyes tight. Did her mom really care so little about her that she can talk to Henry, this kid she barely knows, more than her? And what was so special about him that he could understand her so quickly?
Henry understands everyone, she thought, annoyed and jealous of him. He understands you. More than you like.
She heard footsteps on the stairs, and in a way only people living together can, she knew it was her father.
"Dad, mom freaked again," she said.
"Natalie!" he said, opening her bedroom door. "Don't be so blunt."
"Well, what do you want to call it? She saw him in the kitchen and started invited Henry to some concert..."
She watched her dad rub his temples.
"That has to be so embarrassing," he said, and she almost felt relief. So he was, for once, thinking of her, and how horrifying it would be for your mom to have one of her episodes in front of your relatively new boyfriend. But then he finished his sentence. "... for her."
Natalie glared at her father. "Yeah," she said sourly. "She must be mortified."
Hey guys! I know I haven't updated in... like... forever. But here's a Christma update! Merry Goodman Christmas!