Andy had just finished looking over the shop's inventory. He had made all the necessary calls to his most trusted suppliers and placed online orders for auto parts and other products used by his business on a daily basis. He leaned back in his seat in front of his small desk that was shoved into the corner behind the counter. He drummed his fingers on top of his stack of papers and untied the bandana from around his head.

He heard the quick and loud sounds of an impact wrench and the fainter sound of a ratchet tightening over and over and then a sharp clank as it hit the hard floor below.

As he was looking through the square window above his desk, he watched Jude and Tyler as  they worked on the vehicles in the garage. Jude wiped at his sweaty brow as he rolled out from underneath a car. He momentarily sat up on the creeper to shift his body a tad and then laid back down and rolled back underneath. Tyler was inspecting a tire with a leak and once he spotted the location of it he rolled the tire toward his work area to began the repair.

Both of them worked with looks of quiet concentration about their faces. Jude was not speaking much that morning, and Tyler had spent most of the previous night awake as he tried consoling little Grace. Her bottom second molars were starting to come in and she only wanted the company of her father to ease her discomfort.

It was not a busy Saturday, but business had been steady and they would surely stay in the shop until at least one o' clock that afternoon.

The boys had selected an alternative rock station to listen to that morning. As Radiohead's "Creep" played on the speakers in the garage, Andy's mind traveled back to a memory of being in Mrs. Holloway's language arts class in the eighth grade.

Though his brother and parents had helped Andy with his reading problems whenever they could, his dyslexia seemed to worsen whenever he was not feeling good.

He was never sick enough to be excused to the office to call his mother to come and pick him up from school, but he was still affected, regardless. He would call it being brain sick.

First, his heart would pound in his chest. He imagined he could feel the blood being circulated in and out of it, and with every beat he felt it pulsating in his ears. He would sometimes even cover his face, feeling his cheeks heat up from his brain sick, afraid that his classmates would see what was going on inside of him.

Second, his stomach would tighten from the pounding in his ears and this tension would send a surge of panic to his brain. Lastly, this rush would fog his concentration and dull his senses, leaving his mind in an uncomfortable and sickly state, as if it were a lone fish flapping on a dock fighting for his life.

On this particular day in Mrs. Holloway's class, he had seen Sara Brewer ask Aaron Moss for a pencil.

To everyone else in the class, this detail was of no importance. To Andy, however, it was an action of upmost importance. The sort of heavy importance that after being caught in the arms of an unsuspecting boy it would send him straight down to the bottom of everything.

Mrs. Holloway's  class had seven round tables in it for the students. Four to five students sat at each table, and Andy sat at the same table as Sara. Aaron sat at the table in front of theirs.

For most of the school year, Sara had asked Andy for a pencil whenever she had lost or misplaced hers. Andy would reach into his backpack, get a pencil out and place it in Sara's open hand.

Sometimes, when her fingers would slightly lift as he lowered the pencil onto her palm, he could feel the tips of her fingers barely graze the palm of his hand as he brought it back down in front of him.

Andy's mother had asked quite a few times during breakfast that year, mildly annoyed with him, "Honey, why in the world do you always need me to buy you new pencils?"

"I just keep losing them, Mom. Sorry," he would answer, his eyes fixated on the back of the cereal box in front of him or on his brother, Michael, as he looked over his class notes or homework from the night before.

As he chewed on the crunchy and sweet morsels of his cereal or watched Michael slowly turn a page of notebook paper as he read the last sentence at the very bottom, Andy would try to remember what it felt like to have Sara's fingertips touch the inside of his hand.

"Andy-kins, will you at least try to keep a better eye on your school supplies, please?"

"Yes, Mom. I will," he answered, as his heart, unwarranted, sent out a lingering flutter radiating surprisingly yet pleasingly through his chest to his arms and then streaming directly to his hands.

In language arts class, as he sat next to Sara and watched the smile on Aaron's face gleam with satisfaction as she took his pencil from his hand,  Andy experienced an intense episode of brain sick just as Mrs. Holloway called out his name.

"Andrew," Mrs. Holloway called again, straightening her spine as she spoke. "Andrew, will you please read from where William just left off?"

"Uh," Andy looked down at his open textbook. It was open to page 183, a poem by Gary Soto entitled "Oranges". He quickly glanced at Sara's book to make sure he was indeed on the right page before asking, "Where was that? I lost track. I'm sorry."

There was some snickering in the room. Mrs. Holloway let out a long ssshhhh and frowned at her class. "Please continue from the word 'outside'."

Andy blinked, took a quick final look at Sara as she wrote her name at the top of her piece of notebook paper with Aaron's pencil and read out loud,

"'Out--side,
A few cars--hissing--past,
Fog hang--ing like old
Coats between the--trees.
I took my girl's--hand
--in mine--for--two blocks,
Then--released it--to let
Her--unwrap--the chocolate.
I peeled--my orange
That was so bright--against
The grey--of Decem--ber
That, from some dis--tance,
Someone--might--have thought
I was--making--a fire--in my hands.'"

He licked his dry lips, swallowed, and flickered his eyes up to meet his teacher's.

"Thank you, Andrew," Mrs. Holloway smiled warmly and turned to walk to the front of the classroom, "Now, class, let's discuss the imagery in this poem. Soto displays many..."

As Andy's brain sick subsisted, he lowered his head down onto his crossed arms that were covering his textbook on the table. He then shut his eyes and hid his face--not because he feared his classmates would see the flush of red on his cheeks, but because he feared they, especially Sara, would see the tears welling up in his amber eyes.

When the Radiohead song came to an end, Andy switched the station to sixties folk rock and relaxed as the strumming of an acoustic guitar filled the space in the car shop and the remaining memories in his mind that he wished would be soaked up and removed.

Of course, "I Am A Rock" by Simon & Garfunkel was playing then.

Andy let out a wounded chuckle and scratched at his dark curls, humbled by the bizarre occurrence of particular songs having a peculiar way of following you around when you did not ask for or want their company.

He shifted his weight forward in his chair and turned to get up. As he yawned and pushed up the sleeves of his work shirt, he made a mental note to remind Jude and Lenny to help out more with chores around the house.

Juliette was very busy with her classes. She was spending more and more time on campus. He often saw the light on in her room through the crack at the bottom of her closed door whenever he roused from his sleep to use the bathroom late at night or went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

He was very proud of his niece and the dedication she reserved for her studies. There was so much of her parents in her. She had her mother's heart and her father's intellect.

The shop phone rang and Andy picked it up. As he spoke with the customer on the line, he walked toward the small hallway on the other side of the shop. It led to a tiny restroom and a break room with a sink, microwave, and small refrigerator. He turned on the electric kettle and reached for the box of green tea bags in the cabinet above.

After he hung up the phone, he poured some hot water into a mug. While the tea bag tinged the water a faint green, he breathed in its earthy fragrance and bowed his head in silent prayer.

He often prayed for his kids. On this day, he prayed that their hearts would learn lessons that their minds would one day accept and grow from.

A/N:

Thank you for reading!
I really appreciate your support and time soooo much!

Dear silent readers, I know you're there, and you make me so happy!! I'm so glad you are still reading. I don't know what it is you each like about this story, but I am so delighted with the fact that you continue to read it! Hopefully, that means I am doing well. 

This chapter gave you another peek into young Andy! I know he is a well-loved character, for many reasons. I hope this chapter did him justice.

I attached Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am A Rock"----Andy grins and says, "Of course you would, Leanne." Hehe.

Have you ever had a song or certain type of song follow you around?

I suppose this is more rare in our times of Spotify and being able to choose the music you want, but I still listen to the radio and stations of favorite bands of mine, so it tends to happen to me from time to time.

XO,
Leanne