The Obscure Downsides of Fame (New Edition)

31 || you just know

"Ah, some direction! Finally."

"Now that I did half the work, you can do the rest."

"Easy. Esse. I haven't seen it yet but I've heard good things."

"Esse? What's that even supposed to mean?"

"This kid accidentally stumbled upon this other dimension. Turns out things are being zapped out of existence, in this case, her dimension. Esse means like... 'to be' in Latin or something."

"Sounds good. I knew you'd find the good stuff," I told him.

"I like cheesiness sometimes too, don't expect too much."

"Too late."

•••

The movie was quite long, and I'd already fallen asleep somewhere within the last quarter, missing the ending. I was already half awake, but still with my eyes closed as Nolan gently shook my shoulder.

"Hey," he said when I'd pried my eyes open. "Let's go to bed."

"Yeah," I mumbled. He stuck out his hand for me to hold, and I took it and got up from the couch, hanging onto him with half my weight

We walked to his bedroom in silence, and it was like I'd never been so tired in my life as I dragged my limbs along. But even with my sluggish pace, I bumped into him as he abruptly stopped walking.

"What is it?" I asked him, leaning against the doorpost. It took a moment for him to start speaking, but he eventually turned around, his eyes darting around my face as he asked me his question.

"Are you sure you wanna share the bed? I'm kind of a wild sleeper."

"That explains the huge beds." I actually preferred smaller beds over larger ones. Large ones tended to feel empty, like I could suffocate in the covers and no one would hear me, similar to what I felt drowning in the middle of the ocean would feel like.

"You can take any of the guest rooms if you're more comfortable."

"Do you want me to take the other room?"

His cheeks turned somewhat rosy, and he shook his head.

"Then I'll stay," I told him with a shrug.

"Okay," he said, turning back around and allowing me in.

"Can I still borrow some of your clothes?"

"Yeah, there should be some in that closet over there." He turned on the lights, and my eyes burned from the sudden change. The lights in this room were pretty bright.

I opened the closet he'd been pointing at, and to my surprise, it was filled with multiple graphic t-shirts and two pairs of sweatpants.

"Do you even know who this is?" I asked him, holding up one of the t-shirts from his closet.

"Of course I know Aggie Haywire. I might not know many musicians but I haven't been living under a rock."

"And you've kept her locked up in here for god knows how long? Are you insane?"

"In my defense, I thought I'd lost her." He tore the shirt from my fingers and turned it around to show the back, where there was a giant black signature.

"What? How?" She passed away nearly ten years ago. This shirt didn't look like it'd fit Nolan ten years ago.

"My dad had had it signed for me years ago, but they didn't have a shirt in my size." He threw it back at me, and I caught it with hands so gentle like the shirt would disintegrate with even the lightest touch of my fingers.

"I can't wear it anymore," I said, gently putting the thing back on its hanger.

"No, it's fine. Really."

"No. Aggie Haywire is way too much of a legend to use as a set of pajamas. I'll take this one," I said. I picked the first one I could grab and looked at it thoroughly. No dead luminaries, no signatures, just a random image of an angel that seemed to be falling. It was a nice shirt, but it wasn't Aggie Haywire.

"Alright," he said, and he too picked a random t-shirt from the closet and fished out a pair of shorts from his backpack. "There should be some extra toothbrushes in the bathroom, just use whatever you need."

I gave him a quick nod and locked myself in the bathroom, and as usual in bathrooms, a reflection of myself stared back at me. I could barely recognize myself in the mirror. My face had a permanent little smile on it and with it came the dimple. My hair was looking an absolute mess, probably from falling asleep on the couch earlier. Maybe I didn't look particularly good, but I finally felt good.

•••

After I brushed my teeth and washed my face, Nolan did the same, and it wasn't long before we were lying there in the dark, facing each other with our eyes closed. The closed-eyes thing didn't last, though, because we took turns secretly looking, and everything's we caught each other peeking, we started laughing. It was stupid and childish, but it was exactly the way I liked it. We could talk about our problems, but we could also be giddy teenagers when we needed to be. And with him, I could be myself to the full extent without judgment.

"Stop that, your hands are cold," I told him, and he laughed, purposely wrapping his fingers around my upper arm.

"What? I thought you were the cuddly type," he teased, his laugh echoing through the room as I poked him in his side.

"I am, but you're cold."

"Yeah, and you're warm."

Suddenly his cold fingers disappeared, and he was fully quiet. I thought he was done using me as a heater, until his hands came back and were placed on my face.

"Nolan!" I screeched out. He laughed again, and I tried pulling his hands away but he was stronger. Just as he sensed I was giving up, he pressed his lips against mine. Very shortly so, but it made my stomach flip regardless. "You can't just kiss me and then say nothing."

"What do you want me to say?" he asked. I watched the moonlight reflect into his eyes, a faint greenish grey shone back at me.

"I don't know."

His eyes scanned over the features of my face, long and thoughtfully.

"Have I ever told you how pretty you are?"

For a moment, I was too stunned to speak. I'd heard every compliment in the book, and I've read many more. Handsome, hot, attractive, but none of them had ever quite stuck with me. None of them made my stomach make a flip the way this did.

"You think so?"

"Yeah," he said, positioning one of his hands underneath his head, and the other right in between us. "Like, you're exactly the person you'd expect behind your voice. It sounds dumb when I say it out loud." He followed up with a laugh.

I wanted to tell him that he said exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. And I wanted to tell him that hearing this from him meant more than hearing it from the thirty-five million Instagram followers. I never knew one person could feel more important than the world.

"It's not dumb," was all that came out. He closed his eyes, and I turned around so I could lie on my back.

"I'm not the best at talking feelings," he admitted. A yawn came between to break up what he was saying. "It makes me nauseous, and a little dizzy."

"Why?"

I wanted him to feel at ease with me. I wanted to be the first person he'd come to if anything was bothering him, or if he needed to vent.

"I don't know. It just does."

He was starting to open up with me, but we weren't there yet.

"I know you don't like to talk about it," I started, staring out in the darkness, "but whatever happens, you can come to me if you want to talk about it."

But somewhere between, he must've fallen asleep, because he didn't reply anymore. It didn't matter, though, because I was finally starting to understand. They were right.

You just know.

•••