paper rings | a songfic

even if it makes me blue.

if i allow the honesty to grow, it only got worse (better) in middle school.

we became friends of some kind, i suppose. glares became amusement and dismissive tones turned into phone number exchanges and late night calls, crackling audio betraying sobs and coughs and hurting.

you let me borrow shorts and shirts and other miscellaneous clothes when everything came to a point through screaming and crying. we'd joke about stupid, immature shit and then you'd sober and tell me that yeah, my new haircut did look good, fuck what anyone else said, and the strangest part was that i started to believe you.

one day, over the holiday break of maybe eighth grade, you needed help painting your brother's bedroom wall a bright, horrid shade of royal blue, and i needed to get out of my house, so we stood together painting ourselves and the walls. and maybe the blue wasn't so horrible after all.

"hey," you had said, the way you always seem to, in that balanced lilt you must have practiced at some point because it was the perfect combination of almost annoying but not quite. you tugged on the sleeve of my flannel that may have once been yours and was now crusting over with drying blue paint. there was a glimmer in your eye that should have sent me bolting out the door, but instead led to me nodding when you asked, "hey, you wanna spend the night?"

i texted my mother and she said yes, and i hoped to every star in the sky that my father would get home too late to object. you lent me more shorts and another shirt to sleep in, and then two sleeping bags were unrolled. your whispers, nudges, and presence made me temporarily forget about my too-high-voice and lack of a good name and being called she she she every day at school and at home and everywhere else but with you.

maybe - maybe - it was the first time you began to feel like home. maybe.

we were both stuffed full of heavy-sitting denial, thoughts and wonders shoved to the backs of cupboards and closets. i knew that my hair had been far too long and that i vehemently hated skirts, but we both ignored how maybe neither of us really liked girls all that much? it's almost funny how little we communicated back then for a pair of supposed friends. it should be funny, but more often than not, i find myself crying instead of laughing.

and then, at three-fucking-am, you woke me up with a grip on my shoulder, shaking shaking shaking, with a smile and shining eyes. your hair was tangled and wild and matching your eyes, somehow: i have an idea. and maybe i was supposed to say no, to force my expression into passable neutrality and flip over inside the slippery plastic-fabric-hybrid of the sleeping bag with a sharp "no," but i didn't. i nodded and stood up and followed you out the door.

we ended up by your pool, which should have been covered because it was the middle of december and it was fucking cold; why didn't i grab a jacket before leaving? the pool wasn't covered, though, and it wasn't yet cold enough for it to freeze, just to develop an icy sheen on the surface.

"so. idea?" my hands were crossed relatively futilely over my chest and your shirt was far too big so the arms really went down to my elbows and your shorts were beginning to hang off my waist, but that didn't matter, not really, because you were still smiling and gripping my arm and i was still in a blurry, messy state of half-asleep and the night was frigid but the stars were bright.

"idea," you confirmed, before your grip on my arm disappeared completely and then you were in the goddamn pool, oh my god, but you were still smiling and your hair was plastered down onto your face and cutting over your eyes. maybe that's why i followed you. maybe i wanted to feel alive, to feel some kind of infinite, if the light shone a certain way. maybe i didn't want to see you stop smiling.