In the weeks after meeting Steven on that first day of school I realised that he was pretty freaking cool. I hung out with him quite a lot at school because Angelina was spending most of her time with Jase. This made me realise how much Steven and I had in common. For a start, we had all of the same subjects except one – he took maths while I had history. He said the only reason for that was because his parents thought maths could be helpful, Steven tended not to agree.
Secondly, we had the same music taste which I have not found in anyone in Woodville for well, ever. Lastly, we discovered that we both shared the same passionate hate for many of those that resided at Woodville Secondary College for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Although Steven believed Woodville wasn’t that bad compared to where he came from, it was still filled with the same vicarious airheads every town in the world produces. I told him the only reason he liked it he was because of me. This made him laugh and give me a friendly punch in the arm. It made me feel like a little kid but he meant well I gave him a smile.
Eventually I decided we were done bullshitting it and I invited him over to my house to listen to some music and eat and stuff. I didn’t really think it would be that interesting but I thought we were at the point in our friendship where that was okay and he accepted so I figured it was fine.
It was a Saturday morning at about 11am when I started to get ready for Steven’s arrival. I didn’t bother with makeup or straightening my hair or any of that shit because we were just friends and I’d already worked out I was not attracted to him at all. I just tidied my room a little and turned on the air conditioning because it was a lovely 42 degrees outside and it honestly felt like my room was on fire. I went downstairs and made up some ice tea because I mean come on who doesn’t like ice tea? I also got chicken nuggets out of the freezer for later because, coincidently, they were Steven’s favourite as well as mine.
Steven said he’d be there at 12pm and my parents weren’t home so I just sat on the couch reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower for the billionth time because it made me think in a way that was relaxing enough to distract me from my nerves. I still don’t even know why I was nervous that day. I guess I wanted to keep Steven as a friend so badly that I was worried something would happen.
At 10 minutes to 12 the doorbell rang and I doggy-eared the page I was up to in my book (yes, I do that, don’t judge me) and headed to the door. I opened it and there was Steven, I lead him through to the kitchen were we both grabbed a glass of ice tea and headed up to my room.
“Wow, your room is cool,” Steven gaped as he took two steps into my room and stared at the posters, lyrics on the walls, fairy lights, my four poster bed and my bay window seat.
“It’s taken ages to get it to this, but I’m content with it now,” I stated dryly, walking over to put Sempiternal by Bring Me The Horizon on my record player.
“Holy shit you have vinyl!” Steven gasped, rushing over to see it. “It looks so cool oh my god,”
“It’s literally my favourite thing, sounds better too,” I stated just as the first song (Can You Feel My Heart?) started playing. I sat down in the bay window seat, leaving enough room for Steven to sit next to me. He kicked his black vans off (which looked like they had been worn to death and only just holding on) and dragged his skinny legs up onto the seat, crossing them like I had so we were facing each other. We just sat there while the whole album played, talking about gigs we’d been to and friends we’d had and just telling all these stories no matter how stupid or pointless they may be and repeated this with about 5 more albums. By that time my parents came home and Steven had to leave too. The significance of that day isn’t really important in the scheme of getting to the bathtub but that day made me stop hating so much and for once I actually had the ability to love without hateful thoughts overcoming it. Steven had actually helped. I knew then he was more than just the new kid I’d befriended to protect.
