// a.n. Keep in mind I wrote this back in 2016 so uhhh it's 2022 and things have changed in my head, but I thought it was a cute lil story so here u go! <3
STARGAZING
// cigarettes after sex - apocalypse //
I don't really remember much from that certain Friday night; I only remember it was late, sometime after 3 a.m. and I was still up, studying Physics. I never found it hard to study Physics but, just two weeks before the final exams that would get me into the Astrophysics Department of Greenfield University, I was starting to get uncertain. I should have finished hours ago. I could feel my eyes slowly closing, subject to the fatigue taking over my body. But, after all, being so determined to get into this school is my toxic trait.
Maybe I was too tired; that's why I got a little scared when I heard the typical ringtone of my iPhone echoing over the silence in my bedroom, tearing it apart. The name on the screen was the one I was waiting to see, considering the time. Louis; my best friend, who had probably just finished drinking for the night – for another night in a row.
Louis.
"Hi, Lou."
"Hi- uhm..." I heard his voice, kind of hoarse, drowsy, low. Uncertain. "Can you come? I don't think I can drive right now..."
"Sure," I interrupted the unspoken words he'd probably add; I didn't plan on interrupting you, but you know, I didn't plan on drinking tonight, either.
Because that was Louis.
He was my best friend since childhood, ever since I remember myself. One of the cool kids; he was never one of those who took things seriously, he was just being cool and impulsive, a rebel, defining life so much different than I did. Unlike me, Louis wanted to be an artist, he saw the world as a painting. Maybe that's what tore us apart, after all; how different our lives started getting. Louis was starting to get into my past, to stay back as my life was going on. The endless hours I used to spend locked up in my room, studying until the sun came up and until it went down again. The never – ending art class lessons Louis had started taking, before he dropped out of that, because that's what rebels do when they realize they have no idea if painting is really what they want to do for the rest of their lives, after all. But just for all that he was, and for a thousand other little things, I was endlessly, crazily in love with him. But he didn't have to know.
"Are you coming?" his voice echoed on my phone again, dragging me out of my thoughts; his voice was calmer this time. Maybe he sensed I'd obviously drive him home, wherever he was.
I thought that he must be drunk again. He was always drinking, he'd spend every night getting drunk; it had been two months since it all had started going down and, what hurt the most, was the fact that I wasn't there to keep him in reality – whatever his reality was.
"I'm coming," I silently replied to him and hung up the phone. I rushed through the back door and into the cold night, my car keys in one hand and my leather jacket resting on the other. The calm night breeze hit against my face, waking up my senses. I entered the car and the radio started playing, a soft melody of a song rushed into the dark interior of my Mercedes. One of Cigarettes After Sex – the band I'd listen to when I was sad but also one you'd expect to hear at a late night radio station.
The chilling spring air smelled like rain. I hadn't seen him in a week and damn, I missed him. I missed him like hell, but I couldn't admit how I was worried if he was alright, even if I knew he wasn't really alright. The conversation would turn into the usual conversation again; how we had lost contact with each other lately, and then I would start overthinking, realizing I was the one who couldn't find the time anymore and only focused on getting into university. I stared at Louis as he opened the passenger's door and sat next to me, before he softly shut the door. He didn't speak for a great while. He was looking at me, too. The blue inside his eyes was shining like glass in the mid darkness, almost otherworldly, illuminated by the streetlights outside my car. It felt somewhat weird; his eyes were always red, every time he got drunk. Every time but tonight.
