GOLDEN MOUTH

GHOSTS

jagger was always an attractive boy.

girls surrounded him on the playgrounds, in classes, hell, one girl nearly followed him to the boy's bathroom and shrieked when she saw the urinals.

he was a guy's guy at heart and this was back when "boys ruled and girls drooled" so the attention from the opposite sex was gravely an inconvenience. girls were just overgrown babies and no boy wanted cooties, for christ's sake.

when he fell from his longboard, and had a scar that sliced down from the left side of his forehead to his lower eyelid, he found his very own repellent. it only happened that he was accident prone and when he picked at the bruises that scabbed over, more boys thought he was cool and the girls were much disdained.

but once puberty hit, and that nice little scar of his was stitched up, he enjoyed being respected and fawned over simply because he was attractive and charismatic.

until that phase when he fucking hated it.

it commenced in ninth grade, his english teacher started giving him detentions for no plausible reason and only when the rest of the class was dismissed would she approach his desk and lean low enough that the black lace of her bra peeped over her blouse, whisper in his ear that she heard he had a crush on her.

he used to feel special about it, like it was cool, something to brag about, but he had a nagging sense of dread.

and deep down, he was kind of scared.

she kissed him once, felt his thigh, but he panicked before anything further could happen. he never told a soul.

even when his mom, with eyes brighter than the sea and hair that could never not curl into a wave, barged into his room and asked him if he was okay, (because her son was withdrawn and perhaps mother's instinct,) he said yes. physically, he was okay. no one could decipher the emotions of a teenaged boy, not even him since he couldn't really voice what that situation had made him feel. but jagger felt his mother knew something was off.

he was less of a wild child during that time and resorted to photography. he could play basketball with Nav, and feel lighthearted again until he had pushed the incident so far beneath him, he was practically walking on it.

his father insisted he was fine, his mother would come into the night and pray over him when she thought he was sleeping, and odd enough, towards the end of the school year, his English teacher with the friendly hands, whispering mouth, and lacy black lingerie just... died one day.

she was murdered on a Saturday by an ex lover.

and she had a family, sure, but a piece of him felt free again.

.

jagger knew he was a smidge beyond tipsy when he looked in the mirror and his reflection echoed. he was at a house party, up the stairs down the hall to the left where the nicer "off limits" bathroom was. music with a deep bass gave the house a heartbeat, it smelled like pledge cleaning products, the lemon kind.

he was in the middle of taking a leak when a soft knock interrupted his stream and he supposed he didn't answer quick enough because the knob of the door turned and the door just opened.

there was a lilted "oh my god," behind him before the door shut again. he barely glanced up.

these sort of instances never bothered him because he had nothing to hide. he'd go running naked through the house if someone dared him to, embarrassment was a foreign emotion.

after washing his hands he left only to bump right into his least favorite ex, Malia.

"next time, lock the door before you take a piss."

"what's the point if you've seen mine and i've seen yours?"

she rolled her eyes and shoulder bumped him when walking by, but jagger grabbed her wrist lightly, like she was made of glass. Malia, always so prickly and sharp, her little defense mechanism so no one would get too close for too long.

"i like the dark hair."

he remembered telling her he loved her as a blonde, how it made her eyes look aquamarine, how it brought the blush out in her cheeks, and she'd laugh at his pillow talk, turn red at his compliments.

she had long since dyed her hair brown, probably to forget about him. probably to erase him from her memory. he wanted to ask how it was working out for her- the pretending like he never existed- but he could see his answer on her face and in the way that her eyes glittered in the dark.

she missed him.

(he had that effect.)

Malia turned away before he could see the tear fall. "thanks."

.

the sun had long since retreated when he walked back outside, his vision absolutely swimming now with the shrooms he took from eddie in full effect.

he was experiencing night life in different colors, almost reds, not quite purples, moonlight silver, glittering golds.

surely jagger was still, but the world was moving like a vortex.

his hands were on his coat to feel for keys, the jingle of them sounding like sleigh bells. they swam out of his hands, melted on the sand of the road.

"Fuck."

he walked out in the middle of the street to freeze his keys solid again only to almost be burned by the sun. hawks or tires screeching. maybe both.

"Are you okay?"

headlights spoke to him, a foot from his face, the whole world was spinning when he leaned his head back on the pavement. it was hard for him to think with a burden of clothes on him. he pulled his shirt over his head, pushed back ocean swirls of hair from his face and took a deep breath.

one...two...three...

when he opened them again, that girl, Tawny, was staring down at him. like a statue, like god. and she had wings that would dwarf him in height had they been vertical.

"you hit me." he couldn't concentrate because her wings were a blinding white.

"i didn't."

"you almost hit me."

she was silent.

"i must be an ant," he said breathlessly. "because you're the giant of my world."

the wind whooshed, the wind booed.

like ghosts.