He's Just a Skater Boy (boyxboyxboy)

Chapter 52: Personal Snow Day

Do you ever get some days where you just wake up feeling sad? Where the sun is shining outside but it all still seems somehow bleak and when you look around for what could have made you feel that way there's just nothing there...

I woke up at six in the morning, stared at my ceiling and tried to go back to sleep. Even as my eyes closed I knew I was too awake to go back to sleep. So what the hell? The day would start with or without me.

The light was low in my room and the air was cold. I turned off the heating at night. I only heated up my own room when no one else was home so it was just a matter of turning the knob on the radiator.

The cold breeze that settled in the room reminded me of a couple years back; I used to use a plug-in heater for my bedroom, that way I didn't have to turn on the central heating, it was a way of saving money, in my head the more money I saved the more time my parents would spend at home, obviously I know now that's not how that works. I was forced to turn it back on when the water pipes froze.

Sometimes I had a hard time imagining all three of us, my mom, my dad and me, in one place. Sometimes it was hard imagining them at all, the harder I tried the more freaked out I got, thinking I was forgetting their faces. I wasn't, of course I wasn't, but you know... sometimes...

I squinted through the darkness at the calendar on my wall. I wanted to pretend I'd forgotten but I hadn't. It was my birthday.

I glanced at my phone, it was too early for someone to say happy birthday, and no one would say it anyway.

I got out of bed and put on some socks, making my way to the toilet to piss.

There was a low light, enough to make my way around the place.

When I was done I showered, brushed my teeth, and sat on my bed a towel around my waist my hair damp and water trickling down my neck.

I sighed, sitting there, I should have switched the heating on, dried my hair and gotten dressed.

This was what I was used to, this.

Recently I'd somehow almost gotten used to the opposite, to having people around me, following me and chasing me and... I'd been running after them or them after me. I was distracted by getting annoyed at them or being kind of... impressed by them.

Jacob had been breathing down my neck but he had also stuck up for me when it should have been completely against his nature to do so, and Atlas had... well, Atlas had tricked me into kissing him every day because I'm a stupid embarrassing idiot, even though he already had a girlfriend. 

It should have been pretty clear which one I liked better. Or hated.

There was a brief glimpse into my memory, me pressing a kiss on Jacob's cheek and me following him as he walked ahead of me after ripping out my button. The feeling in my chest as I watched his broad shoulders and long legs, like he was some kind of hero... Was it really just me or was there a minty smell in the air?

I shook my head, trying to forget it all. Then another image followed swiftly after it, the feeling of Atlas pressing me against the wall, his lips on mine, his tongue, feeling breathless, my breathing hitched slightly and I closed my eyes, covering my face with my hands as though that would stop my dissident mind from conjuring up those memories.

I got up and dried my hair, dressed, inspected my face. Looking good.

I would buy fast food and play an MMO game all day. I'd pretend it was primary school again and there was a snow day, no use trying to get to school four minutes down the road when there's a light dusting of snow, time to hear the children playing in the streets as I whomped trolls in the head with a flask of healing.