The sound of locker doors slamming really put me in the mood to slowly drag my face down a cheese-grater. My positive vibes were really not about me right then. Even though I was wearing my NASA shirt today under an open flannel. NASA Shirt Day is always a good day. But not that day, apparently. Spending most of the weekend with Derrick was a good idea. Back to back smoking, and a lot of deep talks. Andie really added something different to our group.
She'd been through more than enough clingy boyfriends, abusive ex's, and plenty of identity crises to be an excellent advice giver. Yet she hardly ever did. She was more in the category of Friends Who Take Your Mind Away From Certain Persons. At the moment, I was refusing to think about him. The phone call, his constant bothering me... I knew I promised myself I'd take Derricks advice, but I was too tired to worry about it right then. My mood was slightly annoyed, but mostly exhausted. This was what Andie liked to call a 'weed hangover'. After getting high, sometimes the next day can really be a downer. You just feel tired and grumpy and out of place.
That was me.
"Alan!"
I turned around without thinking, yawning while doing so and rubbing my eyes. Who was calling me? A hand touched my shoulder, and I shrunk back. I'd turned the wrong way.
It was Austin. His eyes glowed excitedly, nervously, desperately, almost. Instead of my heart racing and hands sweating, though, I just stared at him. My stomach felt like it was going to drop through my knees. We watched each other for a moment, our mouths opening and closing like fish on a boardwalk, trying to think of something to say. I didn't want to talk to him then. I felt like shit.
"Alan- um, I'm really sorry for bothering you," he mumbled, watching me closely. I was an animal that might run away, a nervous deer. "Anyways, I really need to talk to you," he said.
"Again?" I sighed. His face fell, and I bit my lip. All I wanted was to forget his cowardice. His pathetic choices. I was still pissed off, so much.
"Y-yeah. Is there any way we can meet up and talk? I-I don't want to do it here."
"Just say what you have to say and get it over with!" I groaned, grabbing shit out of my locker and feeling slightly like I might vomit. Having him so close...it reignited anger and passion inside me. I hated myself.
"I- I miss you. I miss you so much. And I'm sorry. I fucked up. Just- please- I want another chance. I'll show you, I promise. I won't screw it up again."
I stared at him with a bored expression, but my chest was feeling tight. There was something inside me that wanted badly to give in. In my mind, quickly, I weighed the pros and cons, debated with myself, and reviewed everything. His brown hair was a mess. It distracted me.
It looked so soft. My palms sweated, then, and my heart sped up. I had to tilt my chin to look up at him, still. The way these memories flowed, like little streams in my mind. Seeping into the cracks, dripping everywhere. I couldn't forget the way he felt against me. My head wanted to lean into the lovely crevice between his neck and shoulder. Home.
Sucking my breath in, I shrugged. I had no idea what to say. He reached out, touching my arm lightly, but it felt like red hot fire on my skin. I slapped his hand, shrinking away and backing up.
"No. Don't touch me."
It was like our bodies were in a halfway place, separate from the hallway, the sound of people moving back and forth. An air bubble in the ocean full of havoc.
"I'm sorry!" he blurted, looking antsy and subconsciously coming closer. "I need us to be friends, at least. I need to show you things."
"What are you talking about?" His eyes were frantic.
"I just- can we please be friends?"
"F-fine," I stuttered. "Fine. I'll try."
I couldn't believe what I was saying. There was no way we could be friends. I could never trust him again. He breathed deeply.
"Look. I know that I might've ruined everything we had... But I've grown up a lot and I want to show you that. Even if all you want is a simple friendship. I think you still deserve to know how much I care about you. I just- can't fucking stand this anymore. You know? I hate it. I miss you."
"I have to get to class," I mumbled. The hallway was clearing out, leaving us like ghosts in an empty place. We were alone together for the first time in months and all I wanted was to escape the feelings inside me. The ones that still loved him. The ones that made me weak. Before he opened his mouth, I spoke again.
"We can be friends. But I don't trust you, okay? Not now, not any time in the future. Not after what you did."
"I don't expect you to," he whispered. "But I promise I'll do my best." Our eyes met, shy and hesitant. "The past couple months have been...-"
"Insanity?" I offered. He grimaced, nodding.
"Insanity," Austin agreed. "I haven't slept well," he admitted.
"That makes two of us."
There was a moment of silence, and he looked down the hallway, past my head. "We should get to class."
"Yeah."
"Can I hug you?" he asked, suddenly nervous and frantic again.
"What? No. Why?" I shrunk away.
"I just thought, since we're like- making up and being friends again... I'm not sure. It just seemed right."
He stepped forward and gave me a one-armed hug before speedily walking away, leaving my mind a mess, my conscious heavy.
•••
"You could put yourself up for adoption and move to somewhere else."
I thought about it.
"Nah. What else?"
Derrick popped a grape into his mouth and shrugged. "Arson." Before I could decline, he spoke again. This time, with a devilish smile. "Voodoo."
"I think we were getting warmer with 'adoption'."
"I have a brilliant and original idea," he offered. "Why don't you- oh, I don't know- try and be friends with him?"
My jaw set in place. Even if I let go of the anger inside me, I couldn't trust him. He wronged me. He denied our love. Thinking about the things I suffered through after that night... And how I suffered them alone because he was too big and masculine to tell anyone about us. It made me fucking sick.
"I'm trying," I replied halfheartedly. My friend raised an eyebrow.
"Hey man, do whatever makes you feel good. That's what I always say. Unless- I mean, I know it's hard to do things you're scared of. But there's a reason we do them. So...yeah. Think about it."
I didn't want to think about it. Pulling out a cigarette, I looked around at our surroundings. The park was a dead place at this time of year. The grass was matted down, browning in some places. Trees stuck out of the ground, bare and clacking, like skeleton hands. The sky was flat, and a chilled wind fell upon us, trying to carry our loose clothes away.
It was getting cold again.
"Derrick, can you light me?" I asked, words muffled with a cigarette between them, clenched in my teeth. He shrugged, and pulled a lighter out of his pocket, lending me a hand. I loved the way it felt, the smoke in my lungs. It was a nasty habit, but I wasn't really in the mood to break it. At least I wasn't drinking, too. My friend held his hand out, and I reluctantly gave him a smoke. He was always bumming them off me; we both knew I owed him for all the emotional support he gave me.
"This your first today?" he asked. I breathed in deeply.
"Yup." It was my third.
"Okay, Als." He put his arm around my waist. For a moment, we were really quiet, looking out from our little perch on the wooden bench. I imagined little things falling from the sky.
Memories. Memories of words, and places, and people. All drifting slow and gentle, splishing and splashing into puddles. And I watched them in my mind. The things that collected in blades of dead grass. Forgotten feelings. Endless apologies. Whispered things, and shrieked things. Happy and sad. Scared, needy things that stuck to the branches of our park. I imagined everything in the entire world that I possibly could, here in this place. There were worlds surrounding us, I thought. Sometimes, it was just too hard to see.
I leaned against him, sighing. My cigarette was almost gone.
"Alan. How do you feel about the weather?"
"It's mediocre."
"How do you feel about life?"
"Same as last."
"Can I kiss you?" I paused after this question.
"Why?"
"You're my best friend." I looked at him. His eyes were brown and innocent. His hoodie sleeves were frayed around the edges. His cigarette was gone, the butt in his hand and burning up against the side of the bench.
I closed my eyes gently, and a feeling of calm pervaded me. My mind settled in a baby blue place. Wind lifted out hair from our faces, chilling the backs of our necks, and Derrick placed his lips to mine. We didn't move much, but held our mouths together, breathing, feeling. When I moved away, I kept my eyes closed. It got windier.
"My dad came home yesterday," he said slowly, relaxed.
"What did he want?" I asked. We said nothing of the kiss.
"He thought it was my birthday. Gave me a couple grams of pot and left after an hour."
"At least he gave you a present."
"Yeah. A whole 6 months early," he muttered, laughing. "I guess October and April get mixed up a lot." His sarcasm burned. "I don't even want his weed. It just... feels wrong. You can have it," he offered.
"Derrick. Keep it," I sighed. "Lets go home. The sky is making me sad."
"Okay." He trudged up, grabbing his skateboard and flicking his cigarette butt into a trash can. I did the same, grabbing his hand and letting him pull me. I felt like a child, being pulled along by their parent. There was comfort in this, like maybe I wasn't in control. Like maybe he'd take care of me.
The sound of our clacking boards against the flat, grey sidewalk, that somewhat resembled the sky, was a melody. Even though we were broken and dead inside, we hummed along quietly.
•••
"Alan, come on," my brother sighed. poking at me. Sometimes it felt like I was the older brother, instead of he. We sat alone at the dinner table, as I toyed with my food. My parents were out, leaving us to our own devices. Ever since the park, I couldn't shake the feeling of emptiness. Of boredom, and I couldn't stop thinking about Austin. My broccoli and macaroni didn't look appealing at all. The smell of stale smoke was suffocating me. Opening up my phone, I stared the the screen. Austin used to text me everyday, and I thought it was the most annoying thing on the face of the planet. Now, though, I was curious, and I wanted to talk to him. Somewhat, at least. I wanted to know what was going through his head. No new messages came to my aid, though, and I sighed. This was going to rock the boat for sure. Things would change. I could feel it.
Giving up, I put my hardly touched food into the fridge, abandoning it, leaving it for some other time when my appetite was anywhere to be found. I'd always considered myself a person who ate ate lot; being a teenage boy, it was hard to not eat a lot. But lately food really wasn't my friend. After going to my room and peeling my clothes off, I tossed them onto the floor and slid into bed. My body felt kinda weak, and it was getting harder for me to skateboard so much. My lungs didn't want to work sometimes. I figured, at some point, that I'd stop smoking, but I was still young. There was always time for that. Besides, worrying about it now would go against the code I so knowingly placed for myself: have fun, don't worry, be good to yourself. I was trying very hard to do these things, and I was having as much fun as I could think of. Too much time I spent being sad, and angry, and anxious. Now I had friends, and was maintaining a B- average, and still got to get high most every weekend. Things were... pretty adequate. I was bored, yeah. I missed Austin, yeah.
There was something wrong... yeah.
But I couldn't afford to be so nitpicky. After switching my lamp off, I curled my knees to my chest, thinking about him. It was hard to not think of him at night. During the day, when I was surrounded by light and wits, I was okay. It was the night that snuffed me out and picked it's fingers into the sensitive wounds.
I was alerted by the sound of my tiny, basement window rattling. Sitting straight up, I watched in fear and horror as the screen popped off, and a shadowy figure worked to pick the latch. A scream built itself in my throat, my sweating hands gripping the bed frame as the stranger finally freed the window and stuck his head in.
"Alan! Let me in, damnit. This window is tiny." Austin leaned into my ground level window, smiling at me micheviously.
What the fuck.