Chapter 32
First Dates
Jem
"We better not-" Ellis retreated, breaking the kiss for the want of air, panting heavily as her hands gently pressed against my chest. Her flowery soft hands so near from my throbbing heart caused a spark of primitive excitement to flutter inside my stomach. There was it. The feeling when you know something was about to happen was beating hard in my heart, harder than the rough gasps I was trying to stifle.
"Yeah," I mumbled, lips ascending away from hers. In the blackout drunk darkness, I couldn't see anything. Only vague outlines and silhouettes and hear Ellis's rhythmic breathing, which was only audible from the left side, fast and alive from our rough kiss, though slowing quite rapidly, from the stalwartly steady inhales and sweet releases, distilling. It was alive. She was alive.
"We should probably go out," Ellis said, jolting out of her seat. She guided her hand over to the car door, fingers brushing on the handle, indicating that I should probably unlock the car. I did, we clambered out together in relative awkwardness and entered the diner together.
-
Ellis and I settled on the debate of ordering two burgers, two fries and two cokes for Dinner. When we sat in our questionably hygienic restaurant booth with our trays steaming with the food, hot out of the pan, I instantly uncorked the flask and spilt the sour whiskey into my coke. I can't handle this sober.
Funnily enough, I wasn't the only one who was riding the same train of thoughts. Ellis' hands shook as she pulled the plastic cap of her drink and I poured some whiskey into hers too. From the looks of it, it seemed like little by little I was corrupting Ellis. She shouldn't be friends with a bad boy like me, but it didn't stop her. It was so funny how things changed. How just exactly seven months ago, I only knew her from our tiresome routine at school where she had allegedly made it her new community-service goal to make my life a living hell. She was that girl who was unfathomably good at knowing where to catch me sneaking a drag between classes or pulling the next pranks. I knew her as the girl who wasn't fooled by charms or fooled by the golden boy aura, seeing me as an another troublemaker while maintaining grades that bested her. I just knew her as the lovely little hellraiser with an overworked glare reserved just for me every time the teacher praised me instead of her, that uptight bitch who had a problem with all the jokes I could think of about her height, her flat chest and her inability to get laid because she was such a controlling overachiever.
Now she was...I didn't know what she was to me.
After we were full and finished, Ellis decided to ask the dreaded question:
"So, um, what are we?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, even though I knew exactly what she meant. I just wanted to avoid it as much as possible. Ellis intertwined her hands together arbitrarily, eyeing me, wondering if she could get a read on me. A flint of annoyance rubbed inside of me that we were discussing this. It was not because Ellis's insistence to figure out everything, but it mostly had to do with the fact that she was smart. It had more to do with the fact that she was smart. Smart enough to put two and two together and break down my walls.
"Well," she huffed, as she licked the salt off her fingers from eating fries. She knew I was bluffing. She knew me that well. "We just kissed. Twice. So what are we?"
It was so difficult to solidify the idea of being girlfriendboyfriendoohcouplecouple with Ellis, not because she was gross or anything, but mainly because she's been a really good friend and I kind of actually cared about her. I can't think of her like one of my throwaway fucks and I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want to cheapen her, especially when she deserved much more. I bit my lip at the thought of her. My best friend, my enemy. I would never deserve her. I wouldn't sleep with her or treat her like a side chick or recklessly cheat on her like I had with all my previous girlfriends.
Because she deserved a hell lot more than what I normally do. Then, with revolting disgust, I recoiled, realizing the small seed of guilt and remorse flaring in my gut. For the first time I cared about somebody else's feelings; because I couldn't swallow the pill of Ellis having me as a shit boyfriend.
"Well, we are two friends who acted on impulse," I smiled feebly and Ellis sighed. "We are stupid. But we're human so it's forgivable. We're friends."
"No, we aren't." She grasped my hand in hers. "Jem...look, if you don't want to become anything, we don't have to. I get it; you don't like-"
"It's not that," I blurted before stopping myself.
"Well, what?" she demanded, patiently, waiting, blinking, alive. Under the bad yellowy tinted lighting, she placed her chin on her palm and gazed at me inscrutably. By the corner, an old analogue clock was ticking loudly; every second boring holes into my skull like two steel rods.
I feigned interest elsewhere and snatched my hands away from hers. "I don't want to hurt you. And I tend to hurt people."
Ellis laughed, tugging me closer to her, stringing me up with heartstrings, "You can't hurt me."
"You'll be surprised." There was that itch again. In my lungs, there was this underlying itch to grab cigarettes and smoke it, the itch to go back down the drain. I swallowed painfully and ran my tongue all around in my mouth, savouring the aftertaste of cheeseburger and fries. "I don't want to..."
"Do you feel the way I do?" Ellis whispered after I trailed off, unable to find articulation.
I didn't answer for her. My lips were pursed because the truth was straining to get out. Fuck, I was so fucked.
"You do, don't you?" Ellis finished for me, then she went on, pushing, trying. "You're just afraid-"
"Stop pretending you know me," I snapped.
She blinked, unfazed to my unpredictable behaviour, the rashness in my decisions. She didn't get angry like before at my rudeness, she remained impassive, though her eyes darted between me and the fries.Not a smidgen of an expression flashed across her face, no two points of colour flaring in her cheeks, refusing to reveal what was brewing within her head. Instead, she tightened her fingers around mine, as if afraid I might let go. I think she'd began to grasp a leverage upon understanding on me. How I worked. Damn smart people. I couldn't even fool her if I tried. I snorted.
"Jem," she sighed next to my ear. It was just a sigh; no nagging or sulking – it made me turn unconsciously toward the voice. Ellis's chin was resting on her shoulder, mud brown and honey flecked eyes clearer than before, a look of unusual melancholy about her face. Our cheeks touched and I turned back to the tray of abandoned fries. I couldn't remember what I was so mad about anymore. "Can't we just give it a try? Can't we give us a try?"
She was looking at me earnestly. Give it a try? She was one of those girls who stick to the conventional; boyfriends, girlfriends, unlike me who rolled around in one-night-stands and friends-with-benefits. "Okay," I managed to spit out, ignoring the feeble spurt of guilt when a smile lit up her facial muscles. I attempted my most disarming smile, like the ones you perfect in front of a mirror, even if the arrangement felt strange, foreign, unnatural and painful. "We'll give it a try."
And I knew it then, out of all the biggest mistakes I ever made, this was the biggest and best one. I wouldn't take it back. I wouldn't take backing saying yes, agreeing with being her boyfriend, attempting a real relationship with Ellis who deserved someone who could give her more, shower her with expensive love, because I was selfish and I fooled myself into thinking this may work. I dared breached the wall of self-loathing and wondered if that somebody who wasn't so irrevocably fucked up in so many different shades like me wouldn't fuck it up. But spoiler alert:
I always fucked it up in the end.
-
In the midst of all the cheery summer Philadelphian days, there was one day where it eventually rained. I knew it would, kind of like how you knew you would one day go to college. Or not go to college. It was a knowledge deeply sown into your moral construct, like something you've been taught along with ABCs and 123s. There were too many sunny days in Philadelphia already so the rain was bound to come.
The bloated afternoon dampened my spirited enthusiasm. It was a shame because it was our second date since the Berkins Relationship-Initiation, if you counted the Berkins Relationship Initiation as our first date.
Was it our first date? Maybe I should stop overthinking this, like a fucking hormonal teenage girl fretting over her first relationship, or trying to put a label on whether it was our first date as a legitimate couple. Why did it matter anyway? It was still the same. Ellis still thought a relationship with me would work. She wasn't wrong about being a pragmatist.
"Hey," she greeted me upon opening the door to my face, "Boyfriend."
"Hey," I smiled, but I didn't say 'girlfriend' because...well, it didn't feel right and utterly arbitrary to call her girlfriend, my girlfriend, claiming her as territory or property. "How are you?"
"Good," she responded and pulled me in with a tug of her hand. She led me up the foyer and I saw Lula waving happily at me. "How about you?"
"Fine," I said, "But I wanted to take you to this place in this spot- we can't anymore, though. It's raining."
"So?" she arched her eyebrows. "That shouldn't stop you, Mr Leighton. As far as I'm aware, your determination burns brighter than Tabitha's crop top in pep rallies."
I smirked, shrugged nonchalantly, jokingly, and laughed, glad we slipped into this ability to joke and act as friends despite not being friends. "Fine, we'll head up. Bring something that would keep you dry."
Excitement sparked in her eyes, the fervour for my unpredictable adventures had her addicted as she lilted: "Where are you taking me?"
"Get changed, Porcey, and you'll find out."
"You just want to see me change," she remarked dryly, nudging me in the elbow as I tried to follow her into her room but she stopped me by closing the door towards my face. "Pig."
"That's boring," I remarked, "What happened to incorrigible?" I asked, and Ellis's mouth twitched in grudging amusement and exasperation as she held on the handle before slamming it. "I rather enjoyed the originality behind that insult."
"Oh fuck you."
-
"God," Ellis shook her head at the pouring water, falling like God was attempting the ice bucket challenge in the whole world. "You think sunny Philadelphia would at least last a week."
The rain splattered loudly on the car screens in a torrent of bullets, drowning out the car's radio no matter how loud I twisted the knob to sing out. The car I was using was Heath's, borrowing again. I always told myself I would save up for one, so I wouldn't have to bag off people constantly but I tended to waste whatever measly money I made away with booze and cigarettes. Since I stopped smoking, cigarettes had halted on eating up my income. It was the booze part that needed to be controlled but let's face it: that was not about to happen anytime soon.
Outside, everywhere was covered in grey clouds with identical roads and identical suburban houses with subdivision factors, making me sick with gut-wrenching nausea and a wave of nostalgia of how much I missed Beijing. God, Beijing. I've never been to many places before and in this goddamn infinitesimal small town, everything was the same. Routine. Nothing about Beijing was the same. Beijing was fabulous. It was fantastical, buzzing and alive with literally millions of people. It had so much going on; a blend of an old kingdom breathing out culture and red packets and a shimmering Metropolitan exuding silver and glamour.
I inexplicably looked over at Ellis, staring ahead at the blurry road as the black wipers cleared the screen of dotted raindrops. Dark hair that had paled in the trickery of the dark day's streetlight glow. My diminutive smile widened, observing the calculating way in which she was observing billboards for recognition of where we were going, trying to figure out the elusive surprise in only mounting confusion.
I said: "It's a Universal Truth that if it doesn't rain for three days in Philly, the Earth will spontaneously combust."
"Where are we going?"
"Well, if you shut your cake hole, you'll find out."
"Okay, okay...jeez," she huffed and we surrendered to the silence, as I carefully drove up a slope in the mountains near the woods. The place I was taking her was this secluded clearing of the mountain where it overlooked the whole city. It was beautiful and back when my family was still kind of happy, my mother used to make it a mandatory 'family-bonding' thing that we visited up there for our Sunday afternoon picnics. Dad and I hated it; mainly because Dad didn't want to miss the game on the TV set and I didn't want to voluntarily spend time with my parents because let's face it I was too cool for that.
Somewhere along the ride, she switched the stations and the station was playing some song I didn't know about satellites as wishing stars. "I love this song," Ellis hummed. I Want You. The Beatles.
The trees were becoming wilder, more coarse with thicker and denser branches as the slope got steeper, the roads were becoming less of a road and more of a dirt path as steady patches of cement lessened. When the roads got muddier, eventually harder to traverse through, especially for poor dear old Roxy to lumber on, I said: "We're there."
Ellis used a hand to wiped the foggy wet front screen and peered at the enclave of dark, green trees, unable to see anything- and my hands flipped at the manual switches but the taillights were broken so there was no sign of lights. "This is it?"
"Well, for the rest of the path, we have to walk and it's raining so if you want this night to get wet you're more than welcomed to..."
"No, it's alright...I didn't mean to...it's nice," Ellis tried to look appreciative, then laughed. "Breathtaking."
"It's not the right weather for it," I explained, "Or not you wouldn't have laughed."
"It's private," Ellis said, trying to better it, "Secluded from society, where nobody can see."
"Why are you quoting a rapist?"
"I was trying to make it sound romantic, you twat."
"Maybe we just sucked at this whole conventional boyfriend, girlfriend thing."
"Good," Ellis asserted, "I don't want to be conventional. Isn't that your whole point?"
Surprise griped at me, a shock that she actually remembered what I told her in our past conversations or that she actually listened. "Oh Porcey, you know me too well."
She shrugged and like a math problem, she analysed me with those dark eyes and that I-know-it-all smile. "You're easy to figure out."
"Really?"
"Really." As she said this, I finally moved my hand away from the steering wheel, just as I felt Ellis scooting her body closer—so close that our arms barely touched. I could feel her radiating heat all the same and instead of feeling the usual pang of anxiety or hatred, my limbs began to slacken. As my pulse began to pound loud, alive and heavy within my ears, bizarre tranquillity seeped into my bones despite being within millimetres of the very individual that ought to make me want to yell- want to constantly hate.
"Can't you believe we're going to be seniors this year?"
"God, don't remind me."
"I know. I just feel old."
"Bullshit. You can't feel old. You're not even eighteen yet."
"Yeah," I said because I couldn't find anything to say. The distracting proximity forbade me from thinking clearly and I didn't trust myself to not say anything stupid.
"Well, it doesn't feel fun anymore. Not when you know about divorce, true love not really existing and how fake people can be. Not with the assignments and homework, expectations and people thinking we're the future generation, that we would clean up their messes. It's just so...suffocating. I don't want to grow up. Never ever." The whole while, I was trying her best not to interrupt her, not to smile. Because she got it. She got me. SDark reminiscence was tugging at my heart towards her exact wording of one of the first things I've ever said when we first became friends.
"I understand," I said and I felt myself reciprocating as I leaned closer, lulled by the constant tide of Ellis's hot breath as it now puffed gently against the side of my face. Drawing closer still, my body began to thaw with an edging anticipation, a feeling that festered when she was so near, so easy to reach.
"I knew you would." She shifted even closer and pressed her firm lips onto mine. I was caught off guard by the suddenness of her actions but I returned the kiss, then again.
On the third kiss, she pulled me by my shirt and entangled her fingers within my hair. On the fourth kiss, one of us (I couldn't tell which one, honestly) scrounged over by the car panels and locked the doors. On the sixth kiss, Ellis broke away breathlessly, looking up at me silently, and I stopped counting.
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well then. ANYWAY, the mile high club just updated (wow so in sync sav!)! also be sure to check out operation: ground zero- my newest work in progress!
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