"Oh my God!" I screamed, ready for Eleanor to wake up. She looked so disoriented, I almost felt bad.
"What is it?" She asked.
"It wasn't a nightmare," I frowned, she placed her hand on my shoulder, concerned. "I really did sleep with you. Jesus, what?"
It took her a minute to catch up with my joke and when she did, she got up from my bed, grumpy and clumsy. "You're an idiot, Kohen."
Eleanor was hungover.
After she opened up to me, she had been staying at mine for the past week. Claire didn't have a problem with it because she already knew Eleanor and they were getting along better than before.
Funny thing was that Eleanor was getting along perfectly fine with Gio and the boys. Just last night, she was out with Gio and Nick.
I bit my lip, feeling a little bad as she stumbled out of my room, towards the living room. I heard mumbling, probably curses meant for me.
"Eleanor, it was a little joke, don't be so mad," I shouted from my doorframe, all I saw was her middle finger popping up in my view. I laughed harder.
By now, Claire, aside from the girls, was the only person that knew Eleanor and I were in some sort of thing. I was pretty sure other people knew too but it was easier if we didn't actually acknowledge it. Eleanor and I talked around the subject but I think it was easier if we just ignored it for now.
While I laid in bed without Eleanor, I thought about Eleanor.
This "relationship" was sort of complicated but at the same time, it was really simple and easy going but Eleanor and I weren't together. It was a tricky situation and although I wanted to tell my friends, I had the feeling we were still keeping things private.
At times, though, I wanted to know where we stood, what it all meant but I didn't know how to bring up the subject. And how do you bring that subject up? As far as I knew, a few months ago, Eleanor was just another straight girl to me and now here we were, having casual sex, sharing clothes and getting all deep in feelings and stuff...
If I were to ask my friends for advice, they'd probably ask me to first figure out what Eleanor's into: did she have a type? Did she even like girls?
Ah, the big question... did Eleanor even like girls? I guess if I was in another situation, if I wasn't feeling so weird and soft for Eleanor, I would've been freaking out about the fact that I didn't have an answer to that question, I'd be freaking out but lately I've come to realise that relationships were fragile, feelings are complicated. Eleanor could girls, she could like me for all I knew but tomorrow she could like someone else and I had no control over that, so why stress myself over something that I couldn't change?
I'd be lying, though, if I said that I hadn't contemplated the thought of an Eleanor and I. The simple thought of the possibility of there ever being an us made my head spin. It made me feel stupid. It made me want to jump on Eleanor, kiss her, tell her that she's pretty when she's annoyed at me, when she tries hard not to laugh at my shitty jokes.
Eleanor finally wakes up at the smell of breakfast. I felt bad for waking her up like that, although it was funny the way she kept trying to ignore me at the breakfast table.
When I finished eating, I picked up my plate and left it at the sink. I opened the medicine drawer and got a painkiller for Eleanor. I popped on the table next to her and kissed the top of her head, she glared at me as she put the painkiller in her mouth.
"I have a headache." She said glaring at me, Claire snickered, I pour myself some more orange juice. I grabbed my phone and opened Spotify, I played the LatinMix playlist I made for when I was feeling happy.
Eleanor glared when the music blasted throughout the living room and kitchen. Thank God for Boxing Day and for the amazing speakers I got.
"I cooked you breakfast..." I smiled at her serious expression.
"You're a joke, Tyler."
Claire was moving her head at the rhythm of the song. Eleanor, though, she was still glaring so I decided to annoy her. I began to sing the lyrics to her and although she didn't understand, I could tell she wanted to punch me.
Ay, she looked so cute when she was mad.
"You're so annoying, oh my god." She groaned, taking her plate and Claire's to the sink.
"Ay, que pena, Eleanor, que pena." What a shame, I sang.
"You guys are cute." Claire laughed when Eleanor pushed me away only to then come after me, trying to get my phone.
"I'm cute, Eleanor's just grumpy," I laughed, running around the table, away from Eleanor. "An aguafiestas."
"Partypooper," Eleanor told Claire before she asked, and before I asked how she knew, Eleanor said, "Your mum called my dad that once in front of me, she didn't mean for me to hear but... totally agree."
Claire laughed and I would've too, because of course my mum would say something like that but at the mention of her father, my skin shivered and my brain was clouded with heavy clouds, angry clouds.
"But no, Tyler's actually infuriating." She smiled at me, it was a fake smile. "Irritating and aggravating."
"Ah, I'm pretty sure those are just synonymous—"
"Shut up, Cohen,"
I sing another bit of the song just to annoy Eleanor and I can see it does the job.
"It's funny, though, she can sing and whatnot but can she dance, though?" Eleanor mocked, I glared so hard at her, she burst out laughing.
"Didn't you have a headache?" I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh.
"I didn't know you guys went out last night. I didn't hear you guys arrive, either." Claire asked changing the subject.
"Eleanor went out, I stayed home all night like the good girl I am." I opened a message from Gio, letting me know that he was going to maybe drop by today.
"What do you guys wanna do today? We could chill and have a lazy Saturday?" Claire asked, looking from me to Eleanor.
"We could do that." I nodded, looking at Eleanor.
"As long as Kohen doesn't open her mouth and ruins it, I'm good with it."
"You love it when my mouth—"
"NO!" Claire shouted putting her hands over her ears and walking away.
"Do not finish that sentence." Eleanor said quickly covering my mouth with her hands, she looked embarrassed and her cheeks were reddening.
I tried to say aw, you're cute but because Eleanor's hand was over my mouth it came out so wrong.
"What?" Eleanor removed her hand from my mouth.
"You're ugly." I smiled widely and pecked her lips quickly before she could move away. She tried to push me but I ran out of the kitchen before she could even say something.
⚢
We were laying on the couch, I was on one side and Eleanor on the other, our feet touching under the covers, an animated movie was playing but we weren't paying attention, Claire's boyfriend had just called her and she had gone to her room to talk. Gio was still a no show.
"Have you ever been to Colombia?" Eleanor asked me, I nodded. "Do you like it?"
"We've only been once but... I loved it." I smiled, remembering how Matias got chased by chickens and how I got to ride a horse. "I got bit by a bad mosquito and had a reallybad diarrhoea, though."
"Tyler." Eleanor burst out laughing, dropping her head on her hands.
"What? I did..."
"What's your mum's family like?" I frowned at her question. Now that was a whole different question.
"Different?" I shrugged. Eleanor's eyes found mine quickly, a small frown between her eyebrows. "Don't get me wrong they're nice but they're... see, over here, I'm not— I'm never going to be seen as proper English, even though I was born here but over there? I'm never going to be a real Colombian. I'm too soft, I'm too... too consentida, too spoiled. I love it there and the family and all but I can't help but think that I'm not fully welcomed? It's dumb, I don't know, I just— I don't know, sometimes I feel like I don't belong, like we don't fully connect."
"It's not dumb." She blurted out, shaking her head at me. Her eyes were stuck to mine, even if I wanted to look away I couldn't. It felt like she saw me, like she understood me.
"I— I also think... you know my mum came here as a refugee, right?" I asked her, she nodded, swallowing hard. "My mum loves Colombia, she's hella proud of being Colombian but I also think there's a lot of trauma she's never processed or dealt with and her way of coping with it was to keep us away from it all, like, protecting us from it. My grandma judged her for it and when they argue about it she always says how me and Matias, we're too dependent, too soft, she always said Mum raised us wrong, too far from our culture... and to be fair, when we first went to Colombia, I felt it. I felt like I wasn't Colombian enough, like I was too privileged... and I knowI am and that's sort of fucked up, you know, because I am privileged and yet... I still get assholes calling me names because I'm mixed because I'm not Colombian enough, I'm not black enough and I'm not white enough... it's just a never-ending 'never enough...' it's exhausting... does that— I feel like I'm rumbling, does that make sense?"
I tried to laugh away my words, I looked away from her. How stupid was that? Me complaining about something so dumb... I wish I could take my words back.
Eleanor foot touched mine. Her hand came into view as she gently cupped my face and made me face her. "You're enough... enough of everything. You don't have to fit in one box, you can't be one thing. You're all of those things, Colombian, English, black, white... annoying." Her cheeky smile and her comment made me snort. "Best advice I was ever given? Don't try to fit all that makes you the person that you are into one little box."
"That's just it, though, sometimes I feel like I know nothing about my own roots? Like, people look at me and think, okay, you don't look fully white but then I say I'm Colombian, they suddenly get shocked and go... but you don't look Latina? Like... how am I meant to look like—"
"Fuck that." She stopped me, "Fuck that, Tyler, you're not meant to be anything other than who you are, who you wantto be. Be Tyler who skates, who tells shitty jokes, who's gay, who can't dance, who can't sing but still does it. Be dumb and soft, caring and just your annoying self. That's how you're meant to be and if there's anything bad about you, change it because youwant to change it, not because it'll make it easier for other people to fit you in a box. We're not meant to ticked into boxes, Tyler, you can be millions of things, not just one thing."
I wait for a moment until the fire her words have ignited in me calms, until I no longer feel the urge to kiss her. "Is that why you don't want to label yourself?"
She scratches her forehead and her blue eyes look from me to the tv, to her purple nails and finally back at me. "What's knowing that going to change?"
"I don't know," I shrugged, grabbing her hand in mine. "I don't care if you like boys, too, you know?"
"What a relief." She jokes but her voice is tense and I'm afraid I've messed up.
"No, wait— I didn't mean it in a bad way, I just— lots of people got a thing against—"
"Tyler—"
"I'm just saying, I don't care what you like, okay? You can be attracted to paper for all I care—"
"I'm bisexual, Tyler."
"Ah—" I nod and avoid looking at her, "Sweet. Cool. Glad it's not paper."
"God, you're so... so—"
"Infuriating?" I helped her when she couldn't find her words, "Irritating? Aggravating? Talkative? Beautiful? Amazing? Great in bed? Pleasant to the eye—"
"I was going to go for kissable but you are infuriating, irritating, aggravating and annoying too."
"Once again, those words are pretty much synonyms of—"
"Kohen—"
"Shut up?" I finish for her, she looks at me in the eye and with a smile, she nods, coming over to my side and kissing me.
"I'm the apple of your eye, I know it now." I grin when she moves away, enough so I can see her. I push her hair out of the way.
"That is a horrible saying." She laughed... and oh, fuck, if only she laughed more often.
I think I got a bellyache. Or are those the famous butterflies? Is that what it feels like?
"You know what else is horrible? The fact that you don't want to accept your undying love for me, you should probably hurry up to make sure you don't miss your chance with me, I'm a good catch, you know."
"And who told you that?"
"My mum." I try not to laugh when she does. This was a serious conversation. "Hey, I'm serious, if you don't hurry up, one of these days, she'll actually convince me to call one of the many girls she tries to get me to meet."
"What?" She laughs harder then and my heart is jumping with joy.
I made that happen. I did that.
"Yeah, I caught her once talking to this lady at Tesco's, they were talking about their gay daughters and selling us out, they were gonna exchange numbers, I was so embarrassed."
Eleanor dropped her head in the crook of my neck and kept on laughing. My whole body was vibrating with joy.
God, please, pleasedon't let her stop laughing.