Fell In Love In Stages // a matty healy fanfic

Dick Head

When the last bell rang, I rushed to the hallways in search of Lacy with a new sense of purpose. She was my ride and all I wanted at this very moment was to go to Matty and tell him what I'd been so afraid to say until now.
I see her packing her bag at her locker alongside Sophie at the end of the hall and almost run over a junior on my way there. But as I got closer, I notice she wasn't packing her bag at all. Instead, she was hunched over, with her face in her hands and Sophie's arm lay over her consolingly.
"Lacewhat'swrong?" I say, my string of words coming out fast and almost unintelligible.
"Peter is gonna be at the gig tonight..."
"Peter?" The name Peter sounded new and unfamiliar.
"Peter was her ex" Sophie whispers to me with a look of sympathy on her face. "He was her first, don't you know"
"Have you cried yet?" I ask. That's generally the response to a breakup.
"No," she said. "I don't think I'm going to."
Sophie bit her lip. Literally.
"Say it" Lacy demands.
"Wellllllllll" she said, her pitch three times higher. "He wasn't a real boyfriend! You never liked him like that. Plus he was a complete dickhead" she smiled sheepishly.
Lacy laughed and nudged Sophie playfully. "I really thought I did, though."
"Babe, how could you think that?" Sophie was laughing too.
"What am I missing?" I ask, feeling out of the loop.
"Peter was the cutest boy in our class. In sixth grade, I wrote him a letter professing my love to him and attempted to slip it in his book bag, but his sister; that little shit, caught me in the act and snatched it from my hand. She read it out loud to the whole class. Everyone laughed. He stopped her then, took the letter from her hand and crumpled my heart just as easily as he crumpled up the paper before tossing it in a bin. Poor me was heartbroken." she said, with a sad sigh.
"Dickhead" Sophie uttered, poorly disguising the word between coughs.
"Well, fast forward to one tenth grade school dance. I had exited the school gymnasium to cool off after a whole lot of dancing and who do I see standing against the back stairwell?" she paused, waiting for an answer, as if the answer wasn't obvious.
"Pet-"
"FUCKING PETER" Sophie completes my sentence.
"Peter. And so we're making small talk. He passes me a joint and I'm too excited to turn him down. We take a couple more drags and then he looks at me the way I've always yearned to be looked at by him and he finally asks me if I wanted to go listen to his Run-D.M.C CD.
Sophie and I listened with baited breath. I'm sure she must've heard this story before, and yet she seemed just as much in suspense as I was. "So obviously I said yes, against my better judgement. Once in the car, he starts kissing me, rather aggressively, before he even gets the CD out. At that point, I had fantasized about that moment countless times before. But I never imagined I would feel that... detached?"
Sophie let out a gust of air and thumped her chest with both hands. "Gets me every time."
"Then what happened?" I asked eagerly.
"Well, while we were making out, I had a question clawing at the back of my mind. I stopped him then, to his annoyance, and asked him what he thought of the letter in which I had poured my heart out to him all those years ago. And his response?" she said, this time not waiting for an answer. "Huh. That was you?" She said, mimicking him in a dumb voice.
"Then what did you do?" I asked, completely stunned at how oblivious boys can be sometimes.
"Then she went on hooking up with him in secret for the entire year till his family moved away to the city the year you joined." Sophie concludes in a haste, seemingly irked by this last part.
"Why in secret?" I ask
"Because he didn't want to make things public since he was moving away at the end of the year. Silly girl went along with it" she shakes her head and makes her way to the car.
"Whaaaaaat? He was really convincing" she pouted as we followed.

In my garden, we take over the only sunny corner of the gazebo. It was an old, yet sturdy wooden structure, coated with a thick, bubbly layer of what was once white paint, but had now greyed over the years, covered in creepers. Sophie sat beside me on the wall-lined bench, and Lacy perched above us on the railings, each of us holding a lit cigarette.
"So how do you know he's coming tonight? I mean he's done a great job avoiding this place so far." Sophie says.
"Saw it on his MySpace. I don't even know why he'd wanna come. It's not like he's even friends with the guys."
"Yeah, bit odd, innit?" Sophie says, taking a drag.
"Do you think maybe I should skip? I mean things are going great with George and I wanna be there for him, but..."
I chuck my cigarette butt on the floor and put it out with my shoe before grabbing Lacy by the shoulders, pulling her close to my face. I look into her eyes dramatically and say, "Oh you're going tonight. And you're gonna look hot as fuck!" I scream, shaking her vigorously between words and Sophie jumps up in excitement. "Babe! That is the best thing you've said all day!" she kisses me on the cheek.